The Daily Nebraskan

Funny enough, the thing I remember most about my first year of law school had nothing to do with law--it had to do with writing for the The Daily Nebraskan, the university newspaper. I know now that it wasn't that remarkable, but I remember being amazed by the paper when I first moved to Lincoln--a daily student paper full of exciting and thought-provoking columns on politics, sexuality, philosophy, and more.

After a few months of reading the paper, I decided to send in a "guest column" and they published it. I remember both how exciting and mildy apprehensive I was it when first came out--to have a "public persona" for the first time. Right before Christmas break, the paper asked me to sign on as a regular weekly columnist. I know it's perhaps an odd memory to pick, but the bus ride home for Christmas break, with the stress of law school exams just behind me and the thrill of writing for the paper just ahead of me was one of the happiest moments of my life. I felt at the forefront of things for the first time--that I had something important to say and a platform on which to say it, in front of 20,000 people would be there to applaud or mock.

I wrote for the paper for about a year and a half. Often, my column would be matched with an opposing columnist in a "Pro-Con" format--my main antagonist (I had forgotten about this for a long time) was a strongly right-leaning Christian female. If I remember correctly, while we each wrote for the paper, I clerked for the ACLU and she interned for a Republican politician.

Sometimes the columns would be picked up on U-Wire (basically, a wire service for university newspapers), which meant my columns might be reprinted in student papers across the country.
The Daily Nebraskan had staff artists who would often draw illustrations to go alongside the columns, which always made for an interesting surprise. And even on the days my column didn't run, I would eagerly check the Letters to the Editor section to see the frequent letters of condemnation or occasional letters of support. Every couple of weeks there would be a columnist staff meeting, where we'd brainstorm ideas--I always looked forward to them, though I think some of the columnists saw them as a chore.

My writing style was very different then than it is now. Back then, I loved frequent quotations and a more polemic style. Some of what I wrote back then embarasses me now and sometimes I think I was a lot smarter then than I am now. Anyway, in the next few months I'll be posting them here as part of the continuing process of porting over the contents of my soon-to-be-defunct website. I hope you have at least a fraction of the fun reading them as I did writing them.