I’m a 1st year law student at LSU. Not your typical- I started here in East Laville in 2006 as a biology major. Two (what I consider successful) careers, 4 kids, one life-altering personal trauma, and several battles with my daughter’s brain tumor (won!) and epilepsy (still fighting) later, I’m here at law school.

Other law students don’t see this. They also don’t see the time I took a group of silenced survivors to a press conference on the steps of the DA’s office to strip him of his “tough on crime” reputation, and inform the community of his unconscionably low prosecution rate for sex crimes. They don’t know that I exposed the Police Superintendent of the same city for similar practices.

They don’t know I helped shift policy after I made sure those public officials didn’t stay in office (and they didn’t). They don’t know that my reputation in my own community is that if I see something wrong, I’m going to try to fix it; if I can’t even start to fix it, I make the wrongdoers answer to the public. When the justice system lacks, strong voices can fill in: from getting bad guys arrested when they would have gone free, to protecting freedom of speech right here on campus. It’s quite underrated, this using-your-voice thing.

You might think that law students would be the first to agree. In actual fact, however, a major chunk of your next generation of LSU bred advocates are lackluster voice-users at best. When a beloved law professor was removed for his political opinions at the same time as civil rights being rolled back nation wide, you might have thought law students would show out in droves to support someone we deeply respect and a foundational American freedom. But more undergrads showed up to the rally to support the professor than law students.

You might sympathize with these students being worried about retaliation, but the dean openly supports students protesting because- duh- advocacy is what we are here to learn.

I noticed this as soon as I got here, and I’ve been complaining about it ever since. Lawyers are supposed to vigorously defend and pursue what is right. But this generation doesn’t seem to be concerned with a bigger picture, and when they are, they are easily tapped into submission and silence. Just check out the group chats, where they defend groupthink dynamics and “wait for it” mentalities to the outer limits of any sense.

I have to suspect that conservative powers in the state know about this and are moving to take advantage of the opportunity to squash progressive legal strategies at their roots here. If they didn’t think they could get away with it, why would they be trying to remove progressive voices at the law center?

Something is signaling to conservatives that they can assault fundamental rights without significant pushback at the law center. Couldn’t be me.

Kristen Graham-Winkles is a first-year law student from Mandeville, La.