J-Mac offers little learning, lots of controversy

Note: this is the expanded version of the article published in the printed version of Inter Alia. The opinion is that of the author's alone and does not represent the opinion of the editorial staff, SBA or the University of Idaho.

by Josh Studor

Few quotes from law school will stand out like one Professor James McDonald said during one of his Spring 2007 Constitutional Law classes: “Are there any Republicans that are not evil?” Sadly, that may be one of the less offensive things he’s said in class in recent years.

There just isn’t a great forum for expressing displeasure with a professor. There is no “rate a prof” forum or a new tenure committee hearing to discuss how his ridiculous behavior distracts from the message – if there even is one. We have the opportunity to fill out course evaluations but an old, tenured grump like Jimmy Mac doesn’t give a damn about what students write about him. Rather, the only forum is this one.

I’ve had Jimmy Mac for two classes. Yeah, I was a sucker. I took Con Law II from him after having a really great experience the semester before in Con Law I, which was taught by departed professor Russ Miller (who Mac refers to as Prof. Russ). I was appalled by the Jimmy Mac’s class and swore I would never take another class from that man. But a variety of people assured me that he was “way better in Federal Courts.”

He wasn’t.

And he wasn’t any better to the 2Ls this year for Con Law either. The wide variety of ridiculous statements my Mr. Mac is astounding still.

“You would feel differently if you were a Japanese American” – said to Kinzo. (He responded: “I am.”)

“What if I called you a ‘Fucking Nip’” – said to Kinzo.

“You can’t be a Republican and be a decent human being.”

“California is Californicating the North West.”

“Well then, you’re an idiot” – said to RJ in class.

“Instead of giving [mentally ill patients] meds that make them worse, we should lock them away in padded rooms.”

“You hate [poor/black] people, don’t you.”

For those of you fortunate enough to have not suffered through one of his more manic episodes… I mean classes, let me give you what I remember to be a typical class:

The class starts when Jimmy Mac comes in the classroom early and writes a series of words on the chalkboard that indicate his “lesson plan” for the day. Sometimes they are case names, sometimes they are key people or philosophies, and sometimes there are provocative statements like “Guns and Nuts.” Also included is a set of page numbers that he expects to get through in the next three sessions. He never actually gets to them on schedule.

Then, when class comes to session, he tells everyone to turn to a particular page in the book that he intends to talk about. And he may actually talk about it some days. Most of the time he says something like, “can you believe what the court did in this case.” And then goes on to explain how the “Republicans” on the court screwed up the decision. Usually, it is because the justices hate black people, poor people, illegal immigrants, and women.

Incidentally, justices may be appointed by Republicans or may be conservative, but they are not actually members of any particular political party.

He will then ask a question of the class that has nothing to do with what happened in this case. Rather, he asks things like “in a class this size, you are telling me none of you have smoked peyote?” Or “Do any of you, who are more inclined to the conservative side, want to defend this ridiculous idea?”

Occasionally, someone will tentatively raise her hand and begin to answer a question (or attempt to ask one) and he will interrupt her at the least opportune time. He often stops people in the middle of their statements simply to change the meaning of the statement about to be made and put words in the individual’s mouth. Sometimes, the interruption is simply to call you stupid. It happened to me.

We were talking in class about federalism and whether the state laboratory idea was a good one. Jimmy Mac was obviously on the side of stronger federal government (because he strangely thinks that arguing for a weaker federal government is racist). I raised my hand and said something like “well, there is something to be said about just moving if you really don’t like the law in that state. I, for instance, plan to move out of Idaho because of the anti-gay marriage amendment passed recently.”

“Well, that’s just stupid to put all your eggs in one basket like that,” Jimmy Mac announced to the entire class.

I immediately had 20 or more IM windows pop up on my computer screen with people saying “holy shit.”

His badgering, name calling, and rude behavior eventually lead to people just remaining silent because there is ultimately not point in yelling at the hurricane.

Further insulting is Jimmy Mac’s use of “so called” as a preface to a variety words or phrases. For example, he often says the “’so called gays,’” “so called ‘feminists,’” “so called ‘states’ rights people,’” “so called ‘African-Americans,’” or “so called liberals.” The preface “so called” carries with it a demeaning connotation that the thing it prefaces is not actually the thing it claims to be. I don’t know what “so called ‘gays’” means except that people who say they are gay are not actually gay.

About 40 minutes into the class, the average person realizes that class is about over and, at the same time, realizes that he’s spent more time reading Wikipedia or IMing than taking notes. At least for me, it’s not because I don’t care about the subject or because the professor’s lack of inflection has lulled me to sleep. Rather, it is because at some point, Jimmy Mac’s gruff and abrasive personality has made me shut down. Even as a liberal, I just don’t want to hear “Republicans are evil,” “Scalia is an idiot,” and “Your thoughts are stupid” for an entire 50 minutes.

Students are not only kept from expressing their opposing views in class, they are also kept from avoiding the whole debacle. After one particularly awful class about gun violence and the mentally ill, some students got up and walked out of the class. Jimmy Mac then took the liberty of calling these individuals at home and reminding them that the attendance policy would be enforced should they not show up to class.

Then, when class is supposed to be over, he runs over long enough to finish his point (or whatever he was saying) and tell the class that he didn’t have the time to get through all he wanted to because [insert name] didn’t teach the class enough. It’s never his fault.

But once class is over for the last time, you have your grade to worry about and, in grading, Jimmy Mac is simply arbitrary. Take last semester as an example.

In Con Law I, the 2Ls took their exam early in the finals weeks. Hoping to be able to study better for the exam, many of the students asked for some form of sample questions. Jimmy Mac refused the request and took down the sample exams from previous years. The students then went out of their way to locate some sample questions in a Kaplan Bar Review book and studied from those questions. When the students showed up for the exam, many of the Kaplan multiple choice questions (I believe it was 27) were on the exam verbatim.

Jimmy Mac found out that the students had studied the questions and subsequently announced that he would be removing those questions from the exam. The resulting e-mail exchange filled 2L and administrator inboxes for days. After some discussion, and a meeting with the deans and a 2L student, Jimmy Mac agreed to keep the questions in the test.

Apparently, after Jimmy Mac turned in the grades, he informed the 2L students that they would not be able to look at their exams unless they wanted him to re-grade their exam. He followed with a warning that he was “just as likely to lower your grade as raise it.”

Two particular problems jump out at me: First, Kaplan’s questions are copyrighted and Jimmy Mac used them to “write” his test. What he did would amount to plagiarism if a student were to do something similar. Just to be clear, I am actually saying that Professor James McDonald, a tenured professor at the University of Idaho College of Law, copied and possibly plagiarized Kaplan’s questions for his 2007 Con Law I test.

The second problem I have is that there is no way to know if he actually kept or removed the questions if students are not able to review their exams without repercussions. Without permission to view their exams, students have no guarantee that he didn’t just assign letter grades at random.

Admittedly, this is only one side of the story and at least a few students will completely disagree with my characterizations (including my fellow editor). Those people may argue that Jimmy Mac is attempting to make students see different sides of the issue or he wants to rile up the class so they will pay attention. I agree; one way to teach a class is to rile them up or defend unpopular ideas. However, the way to do that is to present opposing arguments not verbally insult the other side simply to make a statement. Being offensive for the sake of being offensive serves no pedagogical interest.

For the record, I am not writing this because I got a bad grade or something. In fact, I did far better in Federal Courts than I expected. I write this because it needs to be said and this school needs a better conversation about what is appropriate in the classroom setting.