Reading around the news, online, I just came to this headline from Law.Com, from the New York Law Journal
Biden Would Be First Lawyer-President Without a JD From the ‘T-14′ in a Century
I didn't know what the "T-14" is though I could tell that much of that list could be guessed and it was probably a safe bet that they would not be public law schools which graduate a large number of those from the lower economic classes. Doing a word search I found this succinct definition from Thought.Co
Fourteen law schools have consistently remained at the top of the U.S. News & World Report rankings since the rankings began in 1987, earning them the title of top 14 schools. Although rankings among the T14 may shift slightly from year to year, these schools have historically been ranked among the best, and many graduates have the best opportunities to obtain high-paying jobs nationwide.
First on the list is Yale which produced this year's most eminently expellable, hopefully indictable Senator not named Cruz, the putrid fascistic Josh Hawley. Third is Harvard Law School which produced the most expellable seditionist, hopefully indictable, senator not named Hawley, Ted Cruz. I could compile a long list of sleazebags, even just those in and around the Trump crime spree and the seditionist plots to keep him in power who got their credentials at the "T-14". Granted I could also make a list that wouldn't be as embarrassing to those over-rated schools for the servants of Mammon. Probably some who will work in the Biden administration, though, as can be seen, not Joe Biden, himself.
The hegemony of the Ivys and the Ivy-equivalents is one of the things that must be broken. There is something deeply anti-democratic in having that entrenched, privileged, mutually-supportive old-school network as a permanent fixture in our governance. I have not started looking at who credentialed the people in the Biden administration yet but I hope there are far more people who either came from a pubic-school, land-grant university background or who don't hold degrees but came up in the ranks on pure competence and dedication to public service. Among our greatest public servants is Abraham Lincoln who was looked down on for his lack of elite credentialing, not even the equivalent of a jr. high level. Among our worse are graduates from some of the most reputable universities in the world. And those schools should never be able to sweep their credentialing and enabling of them and their networks under the carpet.
My first thought is: any ranking system that is younger than me (and only 5 years older than my daughter) is too recent to mean much.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, any ranking system presumes so many things that exclude too much ab initio that they are like polls: you have to examine the methodology before you ever get to the conclusion.
I’ve never heard of “T-14” either. Ut Austin is supposedly “the” law school in Texas, but lawyers come out if there prepared to go straight to the Supreme Court. When I was a legal assistant, students from UT clerking at the firm were sent to me to find out: a) where the courthouse was, and b: how to to docket call when they got there. At the time, I hadn’t been to law school (and didn’t go to UT when I did). Law schools in Texas have reputations for making good trial lawyers, or patent lawyers, etc. I saw lawyers from no-name schools run rings around graduates of “name” schools in the courtroom. Much more depends on the lawyer than on the school on their diploma.
If I'd been thinking I'd have pointed out that Lincoln as a lawyer had read the law, not gone to a law school, he was a lawyer-president. I'd suspect there may have been others who read the law instead of studied it in a university though I'd have to research that. I think Howard Taft is the president before Biden who got his law credentials from a pubic university, though he got his Bachelor's degree from Yale. Teddy Roosevelt called him a "puzzlewit".
Delete