The real world cometh to campus

The School’s Center for Ethics & Public Service is awarding Kathleen Williams (’82) its Lawyers in Leadership Award™, which recognizes “dedication to public citizenship and leadership” by inviting honorees to campus “to share their life stories for the benefit of the law students who are not yet out in the ‘real world.’”

I’m not sure what the Center is doing. I don’t mean with regard to the honoree, of course. Kathy is clearly deserving of the award, and there is no one better qualified to tell those living in a bubble just what the real world is like, believe me. (She has done as much each time she has visited one of my classes.) My problem is with targeting an unsuspecting audience.

By omitting a comma between the relative pronoun and its antecedent, the Center concedes (as it must) that some of our students are “out in the ‘real world.’” (If there were a comma—i.e., for the benefit of the law students, who are not yet out in the ‘real world’—it would be a non-restrictive phrase, and that would mean that the Center considers no law student to be “out in the ‘real world’”—a clearly untenable proposition as many of my students are far more firmly planted in reality than we faculty are.) As it is (no comma), it means that the event is only for those law students who are not “out in the ‘real world,’” allowing that some law students may be “out in the ‘real world,’” but making it plain that the event is not for them.

This seems kind of mean to me. Shouldn’t admission instead be limited to those who have already engaged the real world and leave those lucky few still in a bubble in peace to enjoy their last days of ingenuousness?