On Teaching 9/11

All of us who teach subjects such as torts and mass tort litigation have likely this week considered our special responsibility and opportunity to discuss in class the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Apart from being the catalyst for two wars and radical changes in American and international political life and culture, the attacks of September 11 were also a mass tort that took without warning the lives of 2,973 people, many of whom left behind deeply traumatized families.  In addition, a recent study concluded that nearly 70% of those who worked at Ground Zero after the attacks now suffer from respiratory ailments, and the death of a New York police officer has been determined to have been caused from his inhaling toxic dust at the site after the attacks.

Although we are teachers of cases involving personal injuries, 9/11 poses particular challenges as a topic of classroom discussion because our students’, and our own, emotional wounds may still be unhealed.  For those of us who were in or around the attack sites in New York, Washington, or Pennsylvania, or who personally knew victims, undertaking such discussions may be more difficult still.  On the morning of September 11, I sat in disbelief looking at the burning Twin Towers from my office window in Times Square in New York and saw the first tower fall.  That event, and the difficult period that followed — learning of neighbors who had died and trying to resume life in the tumult that followed in New York — made me reluctant to discuss 9/11 in class.

Nevertheless, I believe discussing 9/11 in class is worth navigating such emotions.  Of course, 9/11 provides a lens for discussing tort concepts, goals, and alternatives.  For example, my torts class, after initial hesitation, leapt into analyzing potential claims for intentional torts and negligence stemming from the attacks.  We then discussed why Congress created the 9/11 compensation fund, rather than simply defer completely to traditional tort litigation, and talked about the extent to which the 9/11 fund effectuated tort goals.  In my mass tort litigation class, we also discussed the reasons why 9/11 tort solutions may or may not be possible for other mass torts.

But as important, 9/11 also provides an opportunity for students to see in their own pain a shared humanity with the type-faced tort victims who populate our casebooks, and with bystander victims of emotional distress, whose suffering the tort system for many reasons has been reluctant to recognize.  I recall Judge Guido Calabresi saying that he saved such identification of the student with the victim for the last day of his torts class, because a measure of distance and humor are essential if the class is to discuss such serious personal injuries throughout the course.  I share Judge Calabresi’s fondness for humor and professional distance in discussing tort cases, and recognize the risk of personalizing too closely the cases we read.  But surely the significance of 9/11, for torts in particular and our society generally, is worth taking that risk.

I welcome comments anyone might be interested in posting with their thoughts on, or approaches to, discussing 9/11 in law classes.