South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 4, Ed. 1, November, 1994 Page: 1 of 12
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SOUTH TEXAS
COLLEGE OF LAW
ANNOTATIONS
Apathy:
Prevalent in the "real world,"
it's no stranger to South Texas
By RUTH FILLER
Annotations Editor
A combination of events
have led me to this state of frustra-
tion and confusion. The frustra-
tion is the result of more than a
year of trying to cultivate student
interest in this newspaper. More
recently, the frustration is the re-
sult of a staggering student apathy
toward the political elections ear-
lier this month. (Rest assured, this
is a wholly non-partisan apathy.)
The confusion relates to
how a group of educated people
who have succeeded enough in
life to make it to law school can
turn their backs on so much - the
election, the chance to inform oth-
ers and the opportunities provided
at STCL.
My disgust for the Nov.
8 election has little to do with
the Democrats or Republicans;
while I have definite ideas about
who should have won, it's not
the issue here. Rather, I am
miffed at students who were
asked to get involved, handing
out literature for one candidate
or the other, and refused ~ not
because of the candidate's
affilliation, but because, in their
words, it was too close to finals.
Give me a break.
Most of us have lives
outside, and in addition to, the
classroom: families, religious
occasions, extracurricular
continued on page 10
Life, death pose ethical
dilemmas for everyone
By TOM BROWDER
Life and death issues are the
most compelling in ethics. In fact, it
may well be that life is the highest
ethical value, higher than love, or
justice or freedom. If you look around,
you will observe that the universe is
ethically neutral. The laws of physics
are neither good nor bad; they just
are. If you violate the laws of physics,
for example, by jumping off a tall
building, you run the risk of being
seriously injured or killed; yet no one
will attach moral blame to the law of
gravity.
Similarly, nature is amoral.
The law of nature is that the fittest
survive, and the others perish: In
essence, might makes right.
Therefore, morality is unique
to humankind. A consequence of that
idea is that love and justice and free-
dom would not exist if human beings
did not exist. It is also arguable that
civilization could not exist without
the preservation of life being one of
its basic values. To the extent that
human beings are dependent upon
other life forms, plants and animals,
for their sustenance, this principle
may be extended to them, but only in
a limited sense, because in most
cases, we preserve them in order to
consume them. There are also ma-
levolent life forms, cancers and the
AIDS virus, that are not compatible
with the preservation of life. So, the
principle is not universal. In an ethi-
cal context, it is reasonable to con-
fine the principle to human beings,
the highest life form.
I shall define life and death
issues as the following: suicide, eu-
thanasia, abortion, capital punish-
ment and war. Often, these issues
are considered in isolation from one
another. I contend that logical co-
herence demands consistency with
respect to all of them. Taking abor-
tion as an example, if you are against
it, then you
continued on page 10
Getting to Know You
Professors teach pupils the "sport" of lawyering
By KATHLEEN CARNEY
Annotations Staff
Teresa Collett
It is said that knowledge is
power. As lawyers, using that
"power" sometimes results in ethical
dilemmas. If you find yourself faced
with an ethical dilemma or question-
ing your professional responsibility,
then Professor Teresa Collett is the
faculty member for you. In addition
to teaching Pro Res, Professor Collett
teaches Property I, Counseling the
Terminally 111 and Legal Limits to
Medical Decision-Making. She is
also often called upon to consult or to
be an expert witness on professional
responsibility issues.
Collett is a faculty advisor to
the Law Review, the Christian Legal
Society, and to the health law moot
court team. Outside of STCL, she is
the editor of the American Associa-
tion of Law Schools professional re-
sponsibility section; immediate past
chair of the ABA' s real property sec-
tion; a member of the Association of
Professional Responsibility Lawyers;
a member of the Professional Re-
sponsibility Committee of the Texas
Bar and a member of the Oklahoma
Bar.
If that isn't enough to keep
the professor busy, she is a wife and
mother of three! She is active in her
church and with certain political or-
ganizations, she said. Before be-
coming a lawyer, Collett owned and
operated a bridal shop. She said one
of her favorite memories of being a
law student was winning a national
moot court competition.
Look for her most recent article on
family representation to be reprinted
by the ABA committee on Bioethics.
Matthew Mitten
Hey, sports fans, STCL has a
course for you! Professor Matt Mit-
ten is the coach of the sports law class
which is usually taught in the spring
semester each year. If you like his
"coaching style" then you may want
to sign up for his Torts I, Torts II, or
antitrust course.
Professor Mitten began
teaching at STCL in January 1990.
He is the SBA faculty advisor, the
faculty advisor for the Sports and
Entertainment Law Society and for
the sports law moot court team, as
well as a member of the Entertain-
ment and Sports Lawyers Associa-
tion, and co-editor of the Texas En-
tertainment and Sports Law Journal.
Before he began teaching at
South Texas, Mitten practiced law in
the areas of antitrust, trademark in-
fringement, and unfair competition.
He is a 1984 graduate of the Univer-
sity of Toledo College of Law, with
a bachelor's degree in economics
from Ohio State University. He re-
mains a Buck-Eye fan.
Professor Mitten's hobbies
include all sports (as both participant
and fan) and country and western
dancing (have you spotted him at the
Post Oak Ranch?). He has traveled to
Europe and enjoys visiting the dif-
ferent countries. His favorite is Ger-
many, where he can enjoy the food,
festive atmosphere, and beautiful
scenery, and brush up on his Ger-
man!
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Piller, Ruth. South Texas College of Law Annotations (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 4, Ed. 1, November, 1994, newspaper, November 1994; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth144499/m1/1/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting South Texas College of Law.