What an Entitled Faculty Wants to Know

It is the time of year when invitations to interview in Washington are extended and for some, invitations to campus visits. The first stage is pretty much a beauty contest. Have the right credentials, dress conservatively and with good taste and sound eager and alert and you take a step forward toward your life-time sometimes- achievement-sometimes-no-so-much-achievement award of tenure. I've discussed the dos and don'ts before and, for many candidates, it's too late to do some of the critical dos -- go to a fancy school, get on a first name basis with some over hyped professor there etc.

You also have to be what today passes as liberal but is actually conservative and intolerant. That brings me to the most critical test. Tolerance. A deal killer is any signal, so matter how subtle or slight that you might not be totally tolerant of your potential colleagues' pervasive intolerance.

More on University Resources and Elitist Assumptions

What follows are two emails. The first is a generalized statement by a UF faculty member about the subject matter of my post from two days ago about the use of University resources. It also includes some good insights about the actual decision Florida was making. The second is my response. For people interested in class bias the first one, through its tone and content, may reveal some of the power the elites unequivocally claim for themselves.

First email:

Let me begin by apologizing for filling up a lot of mailboxes with more about
this issue for those who don't care about it. But I feel I cannot let the issue
drop with only silence from those who support this decision. So I reluctantly
will share some thoughts. First, for those who have personal opinions for or
against the adoption ban (whether based on religion, philosophy, or some other
grounds), I believe those personal beliefs are not, and should not be, the
foundation for legislation. If the legislature passes a law that targets a
particular group or treats an historically marginalized group in a
disadvantageous manner, especially in regard to a very important personal and
fundamental right, that law is properly scrutinized pursuant to appropriate
constitutional standards. And in this instance, there is simply no rational
basis for saying that every single adult in the State of Florida is entitled to
an individual judicial determination of fitness to adopt a child, except the gay
person for whom the courthouse door is barred and locked. This is especially
true when there are thousands of children out there waiting to be adopted.

Second, and flowing from the notion of legislative review by the courts, it is
precisely the role of the courts to protect the minority's individual rights
from the tyranny of the majority. Legislators, acting on personal beliefs or
political impulse, are generally prone to minimize, if not completely ignore,
the harmful impact their decisions have on the lives of others (especially if
they can get votes that way). I, for one, am glad that we have a tri-partite
system of government in which someone is watching out, albeit belatedly, for the
legal rights of the minority. Given the incredibly deferential standard of
rational basis review, this case is not an example of an activist judiciary
trampling the sound views of the majority - rather, it is the state unable to
make a defense for a law when the bar is so low that you can’t see light under
it.

Third, the funding issue is a different concern, especially vis a vis the role
of public higher education. I should note that in this case the state used
taxpayer funds to defend this lawsuit. It used the state’s coffers to hire
"experts" who used religious and disproved junk “data” and tried to pass it off
as science to support what has now been held to be an irrational law, a law that
was passed in the aftermath of the Johns Committee’s witch hunts and the
shocking audacity of the Miami-Dade County Commission to pass a
non-discrimination policy to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation. These so-called experts (and there were only two despite a much
broader search) were not neutral analysts. Rather they were preachers of hate
and bigotry. Indeed, the most vocal has been unveiled as such a hypocrite that
he hired a “rent boy” for his trips overseas, and when it was revealed he
claimed the “rent boy” was to carry his luggage. The specific facts of this
situation aside, it seems to me that the role of the University is to create
good scientific studies that follow sound scientific methodologies so that the
legislature and the people of Florida can make reasonably sound decisions based
on the best information available. The role of the University is to lead in the
path of justice and truth, not follow the political whims of those who preach
intolerance or would sacrifice the lives of others for political expediency.



My response:

As I noted yesterday, I too favor the recent opinion. OR, in the alternative I
guess it would be OK to say that heterosexual men cannot be around daughters and
heterosexual women around sons. I mean, when you dig through all the crap, was't
the ban based at a gut level on the notion that homosexuals are of low
character and are potential child abusers. It made me ashamed of Florida.

In any case, Professor ------ has written such a wonderful paragraph I have
repeated it immediately below because it so richly illustrates the concerns I
voiced yesterday. The fourth sentence is what we give lip service to. The first
first three are how we often operate (and I do not exclude myself.) -- subtle
and not so subtle attacks, name calling, attribution of bad motives to those who
disagree. And the last sentence suggests we know the different between "justice
and truth" and whim. Justice and truth was once slavery and no voting by women.
It is anti semitism and female circumcision in other places. I get worried
about anyone who thinks he or she has a handle on truth and justice.

"These so-called experts (and there were only two despite a much broader
search) were not neutral analysts. Rather they were preachers of hate and
bigotry. Indeed, the most vocal has been unveiled as such a hypocrite that he
hired a “rent boy” for his trips overseas, and when it was revealed he claimed
the “rent boy” was to carry his luggage. The specific facts of this situation
aside, it seems to me that the role of the University is to create good
scientific studies that follow sound scientific methodologies so that the
legislature and the people of Florida can make reasonably sound decisions based
on the best information available. The role of the University is to lead in the
path of justice and truth, not follow the political whims of those who preach
intolerance or would sacrifice the lives of others for political expediency."

This search for truth reminds me of my first article as a law professor. I
wanted to say something like "the courts generally. . . ." But I knew I did not
KNOW that. I asked a more senior person and he said, "Don't you know about the
"See for example" cite." And then I realized that most of legal scholarship is
"see for example."

A few more points. I think it is irrelevant that the legislature used state
money to fund defense of the legislation. I guess the implication is that we
have been hired to act as counsel on the opposite side -- of everything or
just the things we disagree about? I have a feeling the state attorneys defend
the legislation regardless of their personal views and therein lies the difference
between them and us. We cherry pick the ones that affect us, often by a
self-referential standard.

The irony of some law professors bringing up intolerance floors me. I would say
when to comes to political views we are as intolerant as you can get. As far as
I know we have one "out" Republican and no libertarians. Why? Because very
rarely does any one who does not toe the line politically and culturally make it
to campus or to an interview. And when they do there are hallway rumblings about
the quality of their scholarship.

Finally, I thought someone would raise academic freedom in response to my email
yesterday. I am glad it was not raised for two reasons. First, the biggest
opponents of academic freedom are law professors in their hiring and tenure
decisions. Second, my note was not about academic freedom. Academic freedom is
what economists would call a "free good." Everyone can exercise it and it does
not interfere with the exercise of others. University resources are a different
matter. They are limited and if someone is using them to promote one thing, by
definition, something else is not getting done. As I said yesterday, I am not
sure who makes that resource allocation decision but at least one faculty member
has told me that the Administration has the discretion to fund or not fund (not
necessary prohibit) specific endeavours and has exercised that discretion.

It would nice to talk about all these issues but that would require a level of
intellectual fervor that we lack for good reason. In all our discussions --
courses, programs, hiring policies -- when one side feels it is losing, it
gets personal, if not inside the meeting then in the halls immediately after.

Poster Professor for Sense of Entitlement

My goodness, you poor baby:

Letter to UF Law Faculty

When University funds are used to support a political position, who gets to decide which position the funds should be used to support? Would the Dean or someone step in if the family law department had decided to oppose gay adoption or CGR decided that development of the Everglades by condo builders was a great idea? (After writing this a colleague informed me that when he was asked to write in support of a position he was told he needed permission and he would have to pay the costs.)

While I am very happy with this decision since the connection between sexual preference and adoption is completely lost on me, I am less happy that we use taxpayer money to promote positions that may be disagreeable to many taxpayers. (Of course, in the spirit of how our decisions are usually made, I fully support a system that allows me to decide how the money should be spent.) Back when I knew something about the First Amendment implications of involuntary speech I would have said this is analogous to that. I'd probably be wrong but, as I said, I am not sure I understand the logic by which one side is supported as opposed to another. (And, Pleeeze don't say this is not a political issue but a case of finding the truth because that is non falsifiable.)

The problem with addressing that issue is that it does not stop with things like this. Much of what we do is use University funds to advocate one position or another in our writing and in the class room. And, not coincidentally these are uniformly positions we personally hold whether based on faith, political inklings (very very small inks), having had a particular life experience from which we generalize or possibly because we did actual research on the issue. That may be fine for a private school but I am not as sure about a public schools. Not many law review articles are written by authors who start out with a clean intellectual slate and set out to find the answer to a question by use of the scientific method or any other version of intellectual neutrality. In other words, we seem to work in an environment in which anti intellectualism is accepted and possibly the norm. This is why the term "legal scholarship" has always struck me as odd. I think what we write should probably not be called scholarship but service because we are, in effect, often writing papers that advocate one side of an issue or another. In doing this service it may be important to note that the author is not expressing the views of the University or of those who pay the bills.

Kozinski On Elitism

Thanks to the keen eye of a former student, I have the pleasure of posting this recent excerpt fom a dissenting opinion by Judge Kozinski. I confess this is not something I thought I would do. In the quote, the Judge refers to the "unconsious cultural elitism" of member of the judiciary. In many respects his views are similar to those of William J. Stuntz in "The
Distribution of Fourth Amendment Privacy," 67 G. W. L. Rev. 1264.

I think I would modify that for most law professors to read "conscious cultural elitism." Ironically, for the most part, we are not actually culturally elite.



"The panel authorizes police to do not only what invited
strangers could, but also uninvited children—in this case
crawl under the car to retrieve a ball and tinker with the
undercarriage. But there’s no limit to what neighborhood kids
will do, given half a chance: They’ll jump the fence, crawl
under the porch, pick fruit from the trees, set fire to the cat
and micturate on the azaleas. To say that the police may do
on your property what urchins might do spells the end of
Fourth Amendment protections for most people’s curtilage.
The very rich will still be able to protect their privacy with
the aid of electric gates, tall fences, security booths, remote
cameras, motion sensors and roving patrols, but the vast
majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit
will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel’s ruling.
Open driveways, unenclosed porches, basement doors left
unlocked, back doors left ajar, yard gates left unlatched,
garage doors that don’t quite close, ladders propped up under
an open window will all be considered invitations for police
to sneak in on the theory that a neighborhood child might, in
which case, the homeowner “would have no grounds to complain.”
Id.


There’s been much talk about diversity on the bench, but
there’s one kind of diversity that doesn’t exist: No truly poor
people are appointed as federal judges, or as state judges for
that matter. Judges, regardless of race, ethnicity or sex, are
selected from the class of people who don’t live in trailers or
urban ghettos. The everyday problems of people who live in
poverty are not close to our hearts and minds because that’s
not how we and our friends live. Yet poor people are entitled
to privacy, even if they can’t afford all the gadgets of the
wealthy for ensuring it. Whatever else one may say about
Pineda-Moreno, it’s perfectly clear that he did not expect—
and certainly did not consent—to have strangers prowl his
property in the middle of the night and attach electronic tracking
devices to the underside of his car. No one does.


When you glide your BMW into your underground garage
or behind an electric gate, you don’t need to worry that somebody
might attach a tracking device to it while you sleep. But
the Constitution doesn’t prefer the rich over the poor; the man
who parks his car next to his trailer is entitled to the same privacy
and peace of mind as the man whose urban fortress is
guarded by the Bel Air Patrol. The panel’s breezy opinion is
troubling on a number of grounds, not least among them its
unselfconscious cultural elitism.

Elite Relief

If there is way to open doors for elites while closing them to others, law schools will find a way. And in the process they make some really questionable decisions from a economic perspective.

Take a recent policy adopted by UF. We now have a program of hiring people with "outstanding academic credentials" and with little or no scholarly record or teaching experience." (Yes it sounds like every other entry level hire.) They then work here with a reduced teaching load and summer grants for 1-4 semesters and, after our careful mentoring, go out to be recruited by other schools.

I'll give you one guess as to what outstanding academic credentials means to people who do law school hiring. It means people who have records like their own -- expensive and elite schools. (We stick closely to the Justice Scalia rule that silk purses are more readily made from elite grads than from your crummy old top of the class at say Wisconsin or Florida.) In this case, the candidates for relief are ones who had every conceivable advantage already and did not get a tenure track position by going through the meat market process. So what this appears to be is a relief program for elites who otherwise could not find a job.

I cannot comment on the relative productivity of our most recent hires who came from elite schools and seem to be doing well because we have no one here hired in the last six years, at least as I recall, who did not go the elite route and fit the profile even if it meant dipping pretty low in the class. As a general matter, however, at least, there is no correlation between elite credentials of any kind and productivity. In fact, it the may be inversely related.

So now we are taking it on ourselves to train elites who did not quite make the grade in the meat market. And then, after the investment is made and they are "all prettied up" out they out for someone else to hire. In other words we recoup none of the investment.

Wouldn't it make more sense to see if we can prepare potential law professors who did not have every opportunity to make the grade and fell short. Say someone ranked high from a decent state law school. Our "good deeds," as usual, extend only to those who look and think like us, no matter how conventional that may be.

I've been told we are doing this as part of a moral obligation to avoid free riding on other law schools. In the scheme of moral obligations that is an odd one. We are a State institution and have a duty to our stakeholders. Subsidizing the already privileged would not be ranked high, if ranked at all, among our moral obligations. Perhaps if we hired our own graduates it would make more sense but, although we pay others to hire them, we are apparently above that.

Maybe we plan to pay the relief candidates a significantly lower wage and this is a move to lower our teaching costs. In this way they "repay" us for our investment. This would not change any of the above but it would shift the silliness balance a bit to the other side. This, however was not part of the pitch.

Luck and Class

I've had some thoughtful responses to my last post about Nancy and the blight of children of working class families. It would be interesting to know the difference between working class kids who make it and those who don't -- other than working hard. Making it means having aspirations and aspirations mean have some examples or experiences that tell you what is possible and then having the self esteem to believe you can do it. If the working class family does not read, does not go to museums, and does not stress achievement then it comes down, I think, to teachers who inspire. Yes, the terribly underpaid elementary or middle school teachers may be key in determining what happens to working class kids. They can help the kids develop a "taste" for learning that they may not develop just from their parents.

This all gets to the point that I know of no working class person who status jumped (moved more than one rung up the socioeconomic ladder from his or her parents) without some luck. By the luck of the draw there is a inspirational teacher or second aunt -- someone who alerts the person to the possibilities. It could be a school counselor (as it was in my case) or just a school friend.

Nancy Died Yesterday

Not a Nancy that anyone reading this, except a few colleagues at UF, is likely to know. Nancy was in charge of the copy center hear at UF -- more specifically she was "the" copy center.

She was the one who had to deal with every irresponsible faculty member wanting 75 copies of a 5 page exam a hour before the exam was to be given. Or, everyone who could not understand why it might not be legal to photocopy a book or most of one.

The main thing about Nancy, though, is that she was reminder of the privileged status of others. I did not know her well, although we intereacted almost daily. You knew she was a person with no safety net, no middle class or rich mom or dad to help her out when her husband was out of work which was not uncommon. Her teeth were a mess owing to years of neglect resulting from being on the edge economically. So many other signs that she struggled physically and financially.

When I saw her I saw what could have been my mother had life's randomness not intervened. Working all day for not very much and seeing the rest of us all comfy in our nice houses and cars and working far less hard. She reminds me of every working class person from the State and their sons and daughters who will have very difficult time achieving what others achieve with far less effort.

When a working class person dies who seemed to always stuggle and had no real security and an inadequate amount of what law professors take for granted, I think of my favorite poem, The Village Blacksmith.

An Outside Look at the Inside

Today was one of those days in which you get to see your profession from the outside. I am on a committee that approves courses and the committee had to make a decision on one today. The proponent of the course, not active on the full faculty, was there. The course proposal came with a proposed cap of 24 students. When asked about the cap the first reason offered was it mean being exempt from the curve so the proponent would not be confronted by angry students. When that became awkward, the second reason was too many papers to grade. That did not carry much weight so the third rationale was that it was better for the students. Interesting that the course was on ethics.

But I have no reason to question the ethics of the proponent. In fact, quite the opposite. The insight relates to the proponent's perception of the faculty. The view evidently was that we thought not contending with "angry students" was a good solid reason to cap the course. And, if that failed, then surely too many papers to grade would appeal to the ethics of the faculty. In short, this relative outsider had the courage to tell us who he thought we were -- decisions were made for our convenience.

I found it uncomfortable. Maybe others did.

Response to Question on Experience

This was a good question posted as a comment to my last posting:

"I have posed this question to various friends and colleagues of mine who are in academia: At what point does the machine become so dysfunctional that the experience machine no longer operates? Is there a breaking po tint, or canhere be perpetual mediocrity?"

For what it's worth, I think the experience machine for students will eventually hit the wall. The student demand for high curves is a function of risk aversion. Even the best students want the curve to make sure there is a safety net in case they fall short. Eventually I think the market will force them to distinguish themselves. They will understand that part of the reason they cannot find jobs is that they refuse to take the risk of a grading system that will allow them to shine. For example, when I give a B, it really means anything from a to a B+. I think they may come to realize that the "nurturing," lecturing, multiple choice testing teacher may not be preparing them for life after law school.

For faculty, I think the machine will never break. As standards slip there will be new rationalizations. If all else fails one can stay in the experience machine by reciprocal citations, self promotion and creating yet a another top 10 list. The point is that any threat to the experience machine is dealt with by modifying it and unlike the students there is no outside mechanism to force reevaluation. It is stunning to me how malleable the machine is. The other day I happened upon a popular teacher's power point. The entire power point had to have been prepared for form not substance. I cannot go into here but it was comparable to a slogan. No doubt students love it and the administration loves it when the students love it almost without regard for whatever the "it" is. The "it will move as necessary.

The Experience Machine for Students and Professors

Robert Nozick is often credited with the the idea of the experience machine. The question he posed was would you enter a machine in which you were always happy. Your subjective reality would be wonderful and you would not know it is all induced by something other than your actual existence. I think Decarte thought of this earlier and, if course, The Matrix made it into an entire movie.

The question can be applied to law schools and students. For the students it comes in the form of the curve. As one of mine put it recently "Don't worry about class, there is always the curve." In short, the curve will make you feel subjectively better off but you may be doing miserably. For students it is hard because they cannot stay in the experience machine forever. They take the Bar Exam and some who were happy find they were in the experience machine of the curve. Law students demand the machine and faculty are happy to oblige but it is not their "real" reality.

Law faculty are far better off. They can enter the experience machine and never emerge. Most enter it at birth when born into privilege. And then comes the elite line up of Schools that are popular in large part because they make students feel better simply be being there. Clearly, these days there is no evidence that the students actually emerge with a better education than those who attended non experience machine schools. Then there is law professordom and a life time in the experience machine. Tenure assures a steady income for life and once hired not getting tenure is an uphill battle, especially if you are sociable and sing with the choir with respect to what today's "liberal" issues even though one must be very conservative to do so. By conservative I mean close-minded and intolerant. The main requirement of staying in the professorial experience machine is not to interrupt anyone else's blissful experience machine existence. Do not evaluate, do not suggest improvement, do not question.

Law School Risk Factor Redux

(I found this quiz at WebMD-LawSchool.com and am passing it along for a second time. I'd like to report that my law school's risk factors have improved significantly!)

It's the beginning of the year and time to take an inventory of your law school's health. Give your school a "5" if the description is dead on and a "0" if it is completely inapplicable.

1. There is a critical mass of faculty for whom the ends nearly always justify the means. The “ends” can be anything from personnel to program decisions.

2. The convenience of faculty is always an important consideration in faculty votes and administrative decision making, sometimes to the detriment of stakeholders (students, donors and taxpayers).

3. It is difficult to discontinue or even to objectively evaluate existing programs without it becoming "personal."

4. There is a great deal of gossip. It comes to you even if you are not a “carrier.”

5. There is a solid core of “Making Nice, Knowing Better, Doing Nothing” people. These are the colleagues who express the right ideas – when they express at all – but are AWOL when critical decision points arise that could send the school in a more positive direction.

6. Your administration, when it is internally active at all, is principally concerned with putting out fires but only those that threaten the administration itself.

7. There are few if any norms about making up missed classes, rigor in the classroom, publication goals, testing practices, availability to students, etc.

8. Your dean would rather delay a hard decision or pass it onto the faculty knowing that that the School will suffer as a result. See Chen, Three Deans.

9. Tenured faculty frequently discuss controversial questions with untenured faculty and while doing so make clear their own opinions and what their expectations are.

10. Faculty tend to teach the same courses from the same books for years, maybe careers.

Add up your score.

40-50 points. Go to the Law School ER immediately. Not for your school. It left the world of the living some time ago. You, however, have a pulse. Save yourself by writing and teaching your very best and finding a hobby.

30-39 points. Your School is in critical condition but there is a chance of survival. It will be very tricky. Retirements, hiring stealth candidates, and a courageous dean are needed. Guerilla action maybe in order.

20-29 points. You have an elevated risk of law school death but it can be controlled by diet and exercise. Do not let the opportunity slip away.

10-19 points. Enjoy your law school’s good health.

0-9 points. See a physician immediately. You are delusional.

The Blindness of Law School Hiring Committees

Although the details are not evident from this short article, the idea seems to be that the grades a law student makes in school are more important than the school attended in determining career success. I mention this because I have seen first hand hiring committee's turn their noses up at a top ten grad from, say, Minnesota, in favor of a bottom of the top third or even lower -- much lower- Harvard grad. There is no way to put it other than it is an empirically unsound way to make the hiring decision. Why do they do that. Not to bore you for the 10th time, but for the most part the committees are composed of elitists and the hiring is self-referential -- they are hiring themselves or what they wannabe. So each year another batch of elite grads roles into a profession that has grown terribly stale and humorless. Plus, they are not that well educated. In fact, when I consider the interests of, let's say, an Exeter, Princeton, Harvard grad (the most elitist combo I can think of right now) I wonder what is going in in the classroom.

Could we test this. Not really. A few years ago I compared publications by elitist school grads with those of non elite schools. The problem was that once you get out of the second tier of Law Schools you are hard pressed to find any non elite grads to make the study meaningful.

Really, I think Harvard and Yale could start producing the Yugo car and half the law professors in the US would salivate to have one (especially if it came with a Harvard vanity plate). Why do I believe that? Because they already produce Yugo grads and the profs salivate.

Revisiting Caterina

This Italian movie has a wonderful and dead center take on class that repeatedly plays out in law schools. As the title suggests, it is about a young girl's problems when moving to the city. She is torn between the lefties and the righties at school. (This all takes place in Rome.) Two characters are parents of two of her school chums -- one left one right. One parent is a lefty intellectual and the other a right wing politician. At one point there is a conflict at the school and the parents are gathered together. Caterina's father, a pathetic lower middle class character who craves being recognized by the privileged, is there too. He best scene of the movie shows his awakening when he sees how close the two other parents are even though publicly they are arch enemies. What he realizes that that they are united by privilege and privilege is stronger than any professed convictions.

It is good to remember this in higher education and legal education in particular. The self anointed liberals (there are no lefties) may from time to time find conservatives to argue with. But where they are rock solid united is in their rejection of non elitists. Do not let their battles fool you. When faced with non elitists they will close ranks faster than you can say hypocrite.

White v. Black

Thanks to one of my facebook friends, I came across this dead on NYT op-ed piece today. The theme is familiar -- whites and minorities pitted against each other for the benefit of the privileged.

Democrats and the Working Class

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that read:

“A working man who votes Republican is like a chicken who likes Colonel Sanders.”

I personally think this is true but, if you live in the South and many other places as well, you know it is not a slogan that most people pay attention to.

What makes working class people vote so often for politicians who promote the interests of their bosses? So-called liberals chalk it up to racism because this helps justify their lack of interest in class issues.

I think there is a different, more subtle, explanation. For whatever reason, the “face” of the Democratic Party is one of elitists. After all, Bill Clinton tried to appoint to his cabinet Zoe Baird, half of a $600,000 a year couple who were willing to pay only $24,000 to the caretaker of her only daughter. Rock stars, movie stars, glamorous authors tend to be Democrats and behave in a way working class people regard as immoral.

The Democratic image problem seems unfair because there must be as many elitists and rule-benders among Republicans. But Republicans are perceived to be less likely to use bad language, more likely to go to church, and to listen to country music, and more likely to fly an American flag with pride: cultural mores that working class people tend to share.

But the problem is not which party has more elitists. The actual problem is two-fold. First, Democrats have become progessively less interested in class in the last 50 years. Second, even if they claim to be advocates for the "working man," they are woefully ignorant of the what it means to be a working class person in America. A law professor would have no idea, for example, what it would be like to get up at 7:00 and return home at 6:00 after a day of physical work - no leisurely visits to the faculty lounge, no extended gossip sessions, no time to go to the dentist, etc. A law professor could not conceive of living on $15.00 an hour or his/her spouse bartending nights to make ends meet or worry about the price of ground beef or deciding to eat hot dogs once a week in order to make ends meet. They tend to shudder at things blue collar.


I watch this process play out at my job. I think I am pretty good at spotting the very few working class students who filter into even a state law school. It is profiling to be sure, but they are more likely to have acne scars, poor dental work, out of date hair styles (no mullets thank God) and to be overweight. When the first “dress up” occasion is held, the men and women are more likely to look like they read “court attire” to mean “Scarface attire.”

As these people move through law school, they get a belly-full of “liberal” indoctrination that is at best class-neutral and probably anti blue collar. When it comes to research assistant positions they are befuddled by why they were not chosen and Ms. Perfect Smile is. And when profs chum it up with students, you can bet it is not with the students who have even a smidgen of working classness about them. Perhaps this is understandable: people are more comfortable around those who are like them. So much for "embracing diversity."

Who would get your vote. Someone who does not care about you but is honest about it. Or someone who claims to care but actually finds you an inconvenient reminder of his own hypocrisy?

Strategy and Volunteers: Summer Rerun

A few days ago, I wrote a blog about volunteers. It was inspired by an incident at my school that involved a person in charge of a cushy assignment “volunteering” to do the assignment himself. Here are some other examples. At my school, because we do not hire people to teach what the students need, 5 people are now teaching two large first year sections. I think when we all agreed to do it, it could be legitimately be regarded as volunteering because it looked like it would be difficult. Now a few of us have decided it is a breeze. One prep and 6 or 8 hours of your teaching obligation is done for the year – hardly anything that should create in the School a need to “compensate” us in one way or another. But a person employing the volunteer strategy will continue "I am doing you a favor" charade. I do not know if anyone is in this case.

Here is another one. In my second year of law teaching I was on an 8 person appointments committee. At our weekly meeting it was announced that the budget allowed for 6 people to go to D.C. Now we all know that profs moan and groan about going to the meat market but they really love it – be a big shot for a few days, drink, clown around. So, at the meeting the Chair asked, “Who wants to go.” Not a single hand went up. At the next meeting the Chair announced that every person on the committee had contacted him privately to “volunteer” to go. Wanting to go created no implicit debt but a “volunteer” deserves something in return.

Where is this going? Actually I know I may be manufacturing something here that does not exist at all. But, can the volunteer schitk be part of an overall pattern of professional strategic behavior? If it is, is it a law professor thing, an upper class thing or just something everyone does.

The overall strategy has three components. First is the voluteer. Second, you are always working hard and overburdened. Even if you just finished an hour of spider solitaire, webboggle, or surfing the net, when you come of your office you are in the midst of something pressing. So many things to do! Third, there is the “show no passion” strategy. Best to appear indifferent. Basic bargaining -- no one has any leverage with you when you do not care. Be sure to use words like “Aren’t you concerned about X” as opposed to “I really do not like X.”

Am I describing my school? Actually, I can only think of a few people that consistently fit the model and you would be hard pressed to convince me that my School is different from any other. Have I used these strategies? I am sure I have from time to time.

But think about the hell of keeping all of these going all the time. Such is the strategic life and my hunch is that it is a behavior found mainly among the privileged.

Bait and Switch?

If there is a theme among the many student and professor posts about law schools it is that they are involved in a bait and switch. Students are attracted by the promise of employment in high paying and exciting jobs. They then discover there are not that many jobs, they do not all pay well and they can be boring. The problem here is that law schools involved in the USN&WR game want to and do inflate their employment figures. Ironically, these misleading figure may benefit students by making their degrees seem more valuable.Just think how the students would feel if, after enrolling, a school's decided to play it straight and its ranking dropped from 30th to 50th.

Playing it straight means not hiring one's own graduates, not paying firms to hire them and not giving grants to students while working. The employment figures would drop and the School's ranking would suffer. Students would have a better idea of exactly what to expect upon graduation.

What students seem to want may be hard to achieve. I think most want the world to believe that their schools' degrees are highly valued. On the other hand, they also want to know the truth. But if the truth gets out, it undermines the first objective.

I do not know what will happen. When the market for Ph.D.s dropped several years ago, applications fell and departments got smaller. The market worked. I do not know if that was because departments did not make false claims about placements or would be applicants realized that having a Ph.D. most likely qualified you to drive a taxi.

And lurking in the background is that the students are in many respects means to the ends of law professors. Without applicants and high enrollments, teaching jobs for graduates of elite law schools would dwindle.

Finally, there is a point of view perhaps held only by me. I don't thing not finding a job means legal education is a waste. Instead I think a legal education is part of becoming a well educated person. In fact, I wish Law School administrations would stress this in their sales pitches.

The Game

In response to my blog on networking, anonymous comments as follows:

"Little and big cliques arise that tend to retard rather than advance the scholarship in that area."

One of the oddest pieces of advice I received from a law professor on trying to break into the academy was to approvingly cite influential scholars and follow up with them to create a "citation ion orgy."

As usual this "A" hits the nail on the head. It also sback a memory of riding in a car several years ago with a more senior law professor. In fact, it was one of my former professors who has done extremely well. WA bit of a mentor. We were chatting about a law professor who had been in the business about as long as I had and he observed "He really knows how to play the game." He said this with complete admiration. Playing the game meant that day's version of self promotion. For example, he might refer to a relatively modest book review in the Harvard Law Review as "my piece in Harvard." Actually today since Harvard has many law reviews this is an even more common ploy. No matter if you are in the 10th ranking specialty review you call it "my piece in Harvard."

But playing the game was so much more than just that. Today's technology means one can be a full time game player.

It reminds of a story told about Harrison Ford trying to get a job in Hollywood. Evidently he was being told why he could not succeed and the person showing him a clip of Tony Curtis playing a delivery boy. The director or agent said about Curtis, "You can just tell he is a star." Ford's reply was "I thought he was supposed to be a delivery boy."

And I thought law professors taught and wrote and did not worry about "the game." What I do not understand is why they did not go into another line of work -- business, sales, administration, politics, etc. Actually both the former professor and the young professor he admired so much did exactly that.

Summer Rerun in Honor of Futbol: Juice

One of my favorite things in Rio is the juice bars. This photo is of my personal favorite. They are on virtually every corner. Most have not just juice but what I would call diner food. Actually, I am not sure I ever ate in a diner but it is what I imagine diner food to be. Some you stand at and some have seats with tables and then some have additional tables that you can pull up to park benches on the side walk.

I never heard anyone cop an attitude at a juice bar. I never saw anyone whine at a juice bar. No one care about status. No matter who you are you get the same juice and the same seat and the same service as anyone else and no one expects special treatment.

You do not pick a juice bar on the basis of its name or the training of the cooks and juicers who work there. Performance is the only thing that counts; the better the juice, food and service, the more customers it has. As a customer, if you do not produce you get no juice, or anything else.

Law schools should operate more like juice bars.

Marti Gras in Your Mouth

Here is a dessert treat I think I invented. You'll need some angel food cake, that really good greek stype yoghurt, and sugar. Maybe some colored sprinkles.


Put a slice of angel food cake in a bowl and chop it up. Add the yogurt and mix thoroughly untill there are only chucks of the cake. Now take a bunch of turbanado or "sugar in the raw" and mix it all in. Also add a dash of colored sprinkles -- mainly for presentation purposes.

Chill and eat. Wonderful sometimes crunchy, sometimes cakey and sometimes a little tart flavours all follow one after the other. You will be smiling and reaching to make more. Eat with your eyes closed and it is even better.

Behave for success: Part 2

[A recent commentator responded to the post below with the question of whether I do any of these things. I am pretty sure that I do not. I am not as outspoken as I once was but it has nothing to do with strategic behavior designed to advance my own interests. Instead, as a friend advised me, I was just spitting into the wind.]

It's not an official term but what I use to describe those with working class backgrounds who end up in the world of academics is "socioeconomic displacement." In other words, your parents did not go to college, you are the first in the family to do so and your natural career path might be middle management somewhere. Instead you end up is a strange world. The big advantage of the displacement is to observe the behavioral traits of those born to privilege and choose whether to imitate them. If you are willing to imitate, here are some sure fire tips some of which have appeared before in this blog.

1. Be careful not to overuse "please" and "thank you." These are words of weakness. They suggest you are asking for something to which you are not entitled or have received something that was not rightfully yours all along. So you write to a college and ask, "Could you explain the difference between Marx and Ted Koppel." When the careful answer comes back do not instantly write. "Thanks. That really helps!" No, say nothing or if you feel really pinned down when you see the person say "Thanks for your response." This does n0t mean that the response helped -- that would be too much to concede -- but gets you off the hook from expressing any sense of obligation.

2. If you do anything ever, no matter how greedy you were about it, remember to express it as "volunteering." You know. "I am volunteering to let you pick you the tab for lunch." Or, "I volunteered to fly to Paris for the law and fashion conference." Volunteering means someone owes you, not the other way around.

3. Never oppose the administration on behalf of someone other than yourself. A faithful employee gets fired, not your problem. The dean says he is giving his buddies a raise and asks you what you think. It looks good to you as long as you were not eligible for the same raise.

4. Take no position unless you have a great deal of company. This is important. There is no right, wrong, good or evil. It is all about protecting your options. Even if you teach professional responsibility, talk about ethics or attend church or temple. Lying, half-truths, nondisclosure are all permitting in service to yourself no matter how low the benefit to you or high the cost to someone else.

5. If you take a position, show that it does not matter that much. If you show passion or caring you show weakness.

6. Use information strategically. If you have information that someone else wants it is of value to you if only because someone else wants it. Even if it seems worthless to you, hang in there. Some one may ask you and instantly your importance increases.

7. If you are in a discussion and feel you are not convincing the other person, quickly pull out one of the old favorites -- incivility, bullying, offensive behavior. Forget the fact that overuse of these words minimizes real instances of cruelty and inequity.

You are on your way to being a true "professional."

Obama, Look behind you!

Yes, Obama has now announced he is trying to figure whose "ass to kick." Duh, welcome to the party dude but you are about 6 weeks too late. Doesn't the USA have a few thousand boats at least some of which could be used in the clean up. Or a few thousand national guards people who can use a shovel.

Obama, want an ass to kick? Other than BP, I suggest looking behind you.

Oil Spill Chesapeake Bay

I'll just throw this out there. Suppose the BP catastrophe that is affecting mainly working class people in Southern Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi were in the Chesapeake Bay. Do you suppose there would have been more national attention, more pressure brought to bear on BP and Obama may have become "furious" sooner? Which group has more clout? Red neck shrimpers on the Gulf Coast or well-heeled North Easterners with vacation home on the Bay. Or how about a spill off Massachusetts maybe near the Vineyard.

Furious

I read in the paper today that Obama is furious about the oil spill. That really helps!! Right?