re: professor's political positions:
i've never really had an issue as a liberal and a feminist...epstein said a few weird things but as everyone has said, epstein is an exception to any rule about law professors. we covered abortion and discrimination against women and minorities in con law III and i found strauss to be extremely even-handed; he never offended me, and i didn't feel like he was pandering to me
With Strauss, its actually the other side of the aisle thats an issue. But like I said, he still puts both arguments out there.
I know with other professors, there are reports of "outrageous" things being said (Henderson? I've heard stories there), but I usually find them hilarious. Thats how I see Epstein. Plus, his self-deprecation is endearing (the whole "I think all of the cases and all of these authorities that my own casebook cites on this issue are completely and totally wrong... but no one listens to little old me" thing).
and i loved hazard's shout out to ctim law: someone advocating bringing back the utmost resistance standard in rape prosecution during harcourt's crim class was pretty much the "wtf?" moment of my law school experience.
Our Crim class also had a dynamite off-the-wall suggestion during our rape discussion. Basically: the person agreed that we should prosecute men for "no means no" violations on the public policy grounds many in the class were suggesting (even if the rule ends up being over-inclusive, and has other drawbacks, we want to create a world where "no means no" is taken very seriously, for obvious reasons).
But then he suggested a "logical extension" of that argument: we should also prosecute women for "no means no" violations. If a woman says 'no', but later admits that they really meant 'yes', they should go to jail because stuff like that undermines our efforts to create a world where "no means no" is taken seriously.
There is a much less eloquent, and much funnier, version of saying this (not to mention more to it), but I don't think its LSD appropriate.