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Vol 12, Issue 9
JARED MINTZ From day one of law school, right off the bat, it was made very clear that students should make a concerted effort to maintain their physical and mental health. Upper-year students, orientation leaders, and lecturers all vouched for the importance of taking care of yourself and keeping active. To that end, we have the Enrichment Centre, Academic Support Office, Allens yoga, MULSS mindfulness meditation, LSS netball and more. However, all that being said, there was a conspicuous omission from our health-related resources: a gym membership. Vol 12, Issue 9
GEORDIE WILSON This year’s LSS election has prompted me to think and note upon the LSS election process and student politics more generally. The first interesting thing to note was the style of promises this campaign cycle. The palpable electoral theme this year was accessibility and humility. Promises were made, like pledges to keep the office open, to be friendly, to stop the ‘LSS from being a closed off club’, to be a conduit for students to raise issues rather than acting as gatekeepers. Vol 12, Issue 9
Clare Van Balen I hate RU OK Day. But in a rare display of uncharacteristic optimism, I’m calling on the community to join a good cause. I’m positing a plan to get behind this empty spectacle with all the cynicism and scorn it deserves. So spread the word, get on board, let's start a conversation, and any other generic calls to meaningless action you can think of. We’re starting a movement. Vol 12, Issue 9
ANONYMOUS A Personal History of Teamwork at MLS When I started the JD, one more senior student in particular had an air of casual academia about them, and certainly other students regarded them as a savant. When I encountered my first year assignments I began to appreciate the mettle of grey matter needed to do well. It was then that an older friend informed me that the student I previously regarded in French class had completed the Constitutional Law exam in a group of three. For their section. As a whole group of ten. They received an H1, of course. I wasn't angry hearing this, I was impressed. Stories of collusion were coming thick and fast. A warning came at the front end of our Obligations exam; students in years prior had booked rooms at the library for the weekend to discuss it beyond their pairs. We knew collusion was not tolerated, but I got the feeling that it was just a bit too on the nose for the faculty's liking. Vol 12 , Issue 9
EQUITY UNCLE Equity, I want to write for De Minimis but I'm worried I'll get a negative reaction from online comments. What should I do? Non-Anon The greatest difficulty for Mill, the herculean task over which he labours here and throughout On Liberty, is to convince his readers to consider that they could, possibly, be wrong. In my view, the strongest of these arguments is what I will call the 'argument from accident.'
Vol 12, Issue 7
NICHOLAS PARRY-JONES Australia is not a premier nation. Melbourne is a great city, the most liveable in the world. But we don't rank in the top ten in Mathematics, we don't have many Booker prize winners, nor is our GDP gargantuan. It's not all bad, we don't rank highly in murders, kidnappings or wealth disparity, so let's take the good with the bad. Vol 12, Issue 7
ANONYMOUS So, we did it. We made it to second year, we survived Contracts and PPL, we made it through Property and scraped through Admin. We go ahead, knowing we’ve worked hard and believing we’ve done well – we’ll be rewarded for this, right? Vol 12, Issue 7
TIMOTHY SARDER It happens time and time again. Forms, surveys, applications. Government, NGO, corporate. “What is your ethnic background?” In most cases, mixed-race identity is not an available option in completing forms and applications that have asked for ethnicity/nationality/race. They don’t let you select multiple options. Often, there will simply be a list of options; either a specific country (Korea, Italy, etc.,) or more broad (South-East Asian, European, etc.,). Then there’ll be the ever-so-appealing “Other” option if you haven’t somehow fit into the generous options provided above. More rarely, there will be a “Mixed” option on there; and hardly ever does that give you the opportunity to then specify what that is a mix of. Vol 12, Issue 7
JEREMY LATCHAM Practically every law student in the country knows that the job market for law graduates is more squeezed than it used to be. There are several thousand more law students than a decade ago, despite low growth in the number of practising lawyers. The oversupply is daunting, so it finds itself in all sorts of legal industry discussions. It’s a reason why students should work harder, drop out, diversify and specialise. It sparked a public argument last year between Frank Carrigan, a senior lecturer at Macquarie University, and our very own ex-dean, Carolyn Evans. Carrigan’s outlook was decidedly negative, Evans’ was decidedly positive, and the two reached totally opposite conclusions about the state of Australian law students today. Vol 12, Issue 7
TOM BLAMEY Seventy-two years ago, the United States of America led the free world to victory against fascism. More than 400,000 American men and women gave their lives so that Nazism could be crushed and their country—and the world—could be free. A few weeks ago, in that very nation, a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 others were injured for daring to protest against anti-Semitism, white supremacy and authoritarian rule. |
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August 2020
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