Legal Commentary

The pseudonymous Professor X, an adjunct professor at a liberal arts college and community college in the northeast, argues against the modern trend of making university education available to everyone, including "students who are in over their heads." He discusses the position this places him in as the faculty member who has to flunk these students and explain to them why they flunked, or, alternatively, pass them despite their inability to do the work.

This is not directly relevant to what we do, since Professor X is dealing with undergrads. But the broader issues are at work, perhaps to a different degree, in legal education: How much should higher and graduate education be about access and opportunity? How can or should legal education change to recognize the shifting make-up of student bodies in terms of past educational experience and preparedness? How do we handle part-time, "non-traditional" students who are working full-time and going to school? How do we handle students who come into class without having picked up necessary skills (especially writing) at prior educational stops? How much of an obligation do we have to remove students early on when it is clear they cannot do the work, even with additional support and resources?