- 注册时间
- 2005-1-10
- 最后登录
- 1970-1-1
- 日志
- 阅读权限
- 100
|
Oct. 23, 2006
My day started with an ordinary Monday morning. Weather is getting colder and trees are turning color.
On the way to school, I felt a little worried about the morning class which is taught by a Dean who likes to call on student and challenges difficult questions on the cases we are supposed to read before the class. She assigned four cases for today's class, two about Congressional power and two about race discrimination. The congressional cases are very hard to understand because they were decided around 200 years ago. I had great difficulty to comprehend the ideas Chief Justice Marshall wanted to deliver there, either from the obscure English language or from the extraordinary reasoning logics. The first case is extremely long and diffcult which cost me approx. 4 hours on Saturday. I had to make notes while reading so that I could still follow the logic and not get lost when I reached the end of the opinion. The issue disputed in the case was actually very simple: Federal government established a national bank, the Bank of United States, in 1816 and opened a branch of this bank in Maryland in 1818, while Maryland had a law to impose tax on banks in the state but this national bank didn't pay the tax and was sued for that. After a series of trails the case eventually went to the US Supreme Court as the national bank claimed that Maryland's taxation law was not constitutional. Sorry to say that but I hate constitution as it's written in very plain language but has been very broadly interpreted by courts in order to lead them to whatever decision they want to make. Especially at the time the case was before Chief Justice Marshall, there was no case law for him to reply upon. All he could use was the constitution where it mentioned nothing about bank and taxing a bank, etc. So he tried very hard to make inference and implications from what he had in constitution so that he could reach the final conclusion that Maryland's taxing the national bank was unconstitutional. I sympathize him for this super challenging task, if not mission impossible, while I also sympathize myself for having to study his opinion 200 years later. With these thoughts, I was praying for not being called on for this case in the class.
It's been interesting that the Dean seems moving her focus on Asian students lately. At the beginning of the semester she most of the times called Indians and German. However, since last week, she started calling Japanese and even a Chinese student last Friday. This surprised us because we thought we have names that are impossible for her to remember and pronounce. So we are inherently safe in her class. But she perhaps studied the student book (where she can see all the students names and pictures) on Asians recently because last Friday I met her at the corridor and she accurately called my name, not my English name, but my real Chinese name! So while arriving the school and sitting in the classroom, I had a feeling which was scaring me: I'm gonna be the one who wins the lottery in her class today. But I still wishfully hoped that I would not be so lucky to be called for the national bank case. If I have to answer questions, those race discrimination cases are relatively easy.
Class started with the national bank case. The Dean raised the first question and looked around the classroom, then I sadly heard my name, oh my God. 
What was fortunate for me was that I had my reading notes. They helped me in most of the questions and helped me avoid embarrassment in the class. The Dean seemed satisfied with my answers. So that was done, not excellent but satisfactory. After class, everyone saw me passed congratulations to me as they think I did good job. The hours I spent on studying this case paid off and saved my face in the class. 
Now I'm sincerely praying not winning this lottery again rest of this semester. |
|
发表于 2007-2-4 08:54:01
楼主
