As I lay me down to sleep tonight and pray the Lord my soul to keep, I will also pray to have a faculty meeting judge.
You see, here is the problem. Privileged people have very bad judgment about whether their ideas are good or bad. This is because they have so often been told their ideas are good sometimes by fancy law schools that are paid to do just that. And, they rarely utter a work they do not think is important. And then there are the peeing cats. These are folks who talk just "mark" their spots. They've got nothing to say but they are saying it anyway. Finally there are people who are one-way thinkers. The one way is negative -- "here is what is wrong with that" as opposed to "is this a good outcome."
What this means is that the quality of discussion can be dismal because there is no correlation between inclination to speak and the quality of what one is saying or how constructive it is. It could be better if we had law school faculty meeting judge. The judge could make two rulings at any time at his or her discretion. These are:
1. Irrelevant:
Let's suppose the issue is whether a candidate should be given tenure. From the faculty comes the following:
"He is a really good father." The judgment here is an easy one. It may even qualify for the second category but it fits nicely here. It's like a huge non sequiter. In some rare instances the faculty judge may actually choose to escort the person from the room.
2. Too stupid to warrant further discussion (or actually even to be stated in the first place).
Let's say the discussion is about students taking courses from their parents and the faculty votes, as mine has, that it is not permissible. Then someone notes that we will have to decide what to do about the grades of the students who are currently in the classes of a parent. From the faculty we hear, "Give them all As because that is what they expected when they signed up for Dad or Mom's class." This can overrule as too stupid and again the judge may escort the person out of the room.
I pray for the law school faculty meeting judge. Amen
