Class Bias in Higher Education: Law School

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Law School

Class Bias in Higher Education

Discussion of class bias in higher education, particularly legal education.
By Jeffrey Harrison

Post Frequency: 0.6/day

Last Entry: July 19, 2010 at 14:40:00

59 Seconds

Posted on February 19, 2010
59 Seconds is a nifty little book by Richard Wiseman. It is not quite a self-help book. Those books usually have 150 pages of trite testimonials and then 20 on how to lose weight, be happier, or grow taller. Wiseman takes the quirky results from various social science experiments about human behavior and describes how the result might be applied to real life...

The Backwards World

Posted on January 28, 2010
Margaret Mead where are you when we need you. Help me understand the strange rituals practiced by a tribe I have discovered.1. The subjects speak to each other using informal names and the hang out together. Then they have meetings monitored by the chief of the tribe...

Don't Hold Your Breath

Posted on January 21, 2010
Don't hold your breath if you expect to hear or even think these thoughts may occur on a law faculty:1. I've talked enough. I'll be quiet and let someone else speak.2. It does not seem fair that I teach so few students while others teach so many.3. This seminar topic is really interesting to me but it would be better if I taught something the students need more...

Diverisity, Capture, and the Latest by Ken Oldfield

Posted on January 17, 2010
Ken Oldfield, one of the editors of Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class, has published yet another insightful piece about the downside of elite hiring. "Our Cutting Edge Isn?t Cutting It: Why Public Administration Should Be the First Discipline to Implement a Social Class-Based Affirmative Action Plan for Hiring Professors" It is in the latest issue of Administration and Society...

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Public Service and Harvard and the Students Admitted

Posted on December 03, 2009
In this blog I have been tough on what I label elitist law professors. To some extent this carries over to students at elite schools. I am aware, though, that many of those students are piling up massive debt and forgong substantial income to attend those schools...

Truth in Recruitment and Welfare for Professors

Posted on November 13, 2009
When I was in college, friends of mine got summer jobs selling encyclopedia. They first went through a training session that was astounding in the level of deception they were taught. They were actually "giving away" the books to "chosen" families. All those families had to do was buy the yearly supplement...

Stumbling on Shame

Posted on October 30, 2009
The details are not important, but this week I had a schadenfreude moment. A person I do not care for was in a awkward position that he would have a hard time explaining to himself except to wonder whether his status was as high as he things. In my office while smiling to myself -- only slightly -- I also realized that this feeling of happiness at his misfortune was not such a good thing...

Don Draper

Posted on October 21, 2009
If you watch Mad Men you know that Roger of Stirling and Cooper, described Don as someone he found in "night school." The class implications have been obvious since the beginning of the series but this drove home the point even more. Don is a fish out of water and those around him hate it that he kicks their butts at every turn...

Too Polite?

Posted on October 13, 2009
Oft times in this blog I have discussed the ways collegiality, manners, and civility are used as weapons to protect those in power. Those are the folks who get to decide what is polite or discourteous and by using certain words -- uncollegial, offensive -- rally the rest of the elites...

The Shame Gene

Posted on October 02, 2009
Sometimes I think what separates the elites from others is the shame gene. Maybe through some Darwinian process they simply excluded it. Those people who were capable of feeling shame were stampeded by those unable to feel it themselves. For example how else do you explain:1...

The Velvet Mob

Posted on October 01, 2009
For some reason a characteristic I share with a few friends is the tendency to befriend outcasts. Whether it was Leonard Doddington in elementary school or Anthony Galubo in middle school they were the kids the other kids made fun of. I sincerely hope they both grew up to be happy and their tormentors also finally felt some sense of remorse...

Political Correctness: College Sports as a Litmus Test

Posted on September 28, 2009
I and most others who use the term "politically correct" probably have different definitions. For me it is a default term that allows me to escape using "left" or liberal because the groups I am referring to are neither. It is more or less a way to capture the anti-intellectualism of some faculty for whom the agenda is more important than truth and legitimate scholarship...

Dear Dean Everydean

Posted on September 26, 2009
Dear Dean Everydean:You have asked what I will be able to teach next semester. I hope this clarifies things. I will be able to teach two sections of my seminar, Law and the Films of Christopher Walken. These are completely separate courses. One section will bring Mr...

Not Too Much of an Exaggeration

Posted on September 18, 2009
Dear Professor Elite:I have scheduled you for a 12 hour teaching load next semester. This is composed of 4 hours of contracts (Monday-Thurs at 10) and 3 hours of Business Associations (Wed-Fri at 1) in the Fall. In the Spring, you are scheduled to teach 3 hours of Agency and Partnership (Tues - Thurs at 2) and 2 hours of a Seminar in Advanced Business Associations (3-5 Monday)...

Greed and Confidence: "Bill Smith, who is at Harvard, . . . "

Posted on September 06, 2009
If there is an actual Bill Smith at Harvard, my apologies because this is not about you. In fact, even if there is a Bill Smith at Harvard, it is not about you. What it is about is the person who says to someone "I was talking to Bill Smith, who is at Harvard, and he says ...

Social Mobility and the Washington Monthly

Posted on September 02, 2009
As reported in the New York Times, Washington Monthly has published its rankings of Universities based on their contribution to social good. It is interesting the compare the social good rankings with the U.S. News and World Report rankings. One measure of social good is the contribution to social mobility and that is measured by students with Pell Grants...

Machine Graded Exams Again

Posted on August 24, 2009
I've written about multiple choice machine [not multiple choice with explanation] graded exams over on Moneylaw but not here on Classbais because I was not sure there was a class or entitlement factor involved. Now I am not so sure.First my view is that professors who give 100% or even more the 50% machine graded exams are shirking their teaching obligations...

Trailing Spouses

Posted on August 17, 2009
Sometime ago I wrote about the blatant class bias and self-referential aspects of the Sloan Foundation's study of how to increase job flexibility for academics. Yes, it was a little like studying ways to may Yao Ming taller.Another aspect of academics that reveals a huge class bias is the problem of the trailing spouse...

Class Bias Part 3: Replay

Posted on August 11, 2009
Then I got Mary pregnantand man that was all she wroteAnd for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coatWe went down to the courthouseand the judge put it all to restNo wedding day smiles no walk down the aisleNo flowers no wedding dressThe River, SpringsteenParts one and two of my discussion of class bias in law school hiring addressed the different perspective that economically disadvantaged people (e...

Atticus Say it Ain't So

Posted on August 09, 2009
I thought I was up on law and literature but evidently not. The latest New Yorker includes a bit of a deconstruction of Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird. If my memory serves me, at least one law professor, Monroe Freedman, is quoted. It seems that the honorable Atticus was only able to offer his moral lesson by strutting is sexism and class bias...

Class Bias Part 2: Replay

Posted on August 02, 2009
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV.And you think you're so clever and class less and free.But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.A working class hero is something to be.Working Class Hero, John LennonIn part one of this three part series, I discussed the different perspective of those who were economically disadvantaged people...

Class Bias Part 1: Replay

Posted on July 30, 2009
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I'll piss on em Thats what the statue of bigotry says Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard. Lou Reed, Dirty Blvd...

Madder Than Gates

Posted on July 25, 2009
Professor Gates got pretty mad about his run in the the police last week. I doubt he got as mad as I did. After a break in in my middle class neighborhood the police decided to question the usual suspects -- teen age boys (beer was taken). So with no adults at home my 17 year old was awakened by three police detectives standing in his bedroom...

Trout, Liposuction, and Foreign Programs

Posted on July 19, 2009
I am eating words right not because I am teaching in UF's summer program in Montpellier, France. Some readers my recall my criticism of these types of programs. In my defense my primary argument was that no new ones are needed especially in western Europe -- adult Disney World -- because there are more than enough to supply every student...

It Takes a Worried Man

Posted on July 02, 2009
Most law professors are worried people and worried people are not much in the sense of humor department. Crack a joke and the first reaction is "is this a joke? what does this really mean? is it OK to laugh? what are the political and social implications of laughing? If the humor is on the irreverent side you are better off saving your breath...

Velvet Hazing

Posted on June 15, 2009
This is not a ?walked 5 miles through the driving snow? story although it may seem that it is.At the mid level schools at which I have taught, life for untenured faculty has changed. At my first teaching job, I taught the summer before my first fall -- a first preparation crammed into a 7 week course...

Casebook Scam

Posted on June 09, 2009
I serve on two on two University committees, one of which deals with grievances and professional ethics. Surprising as it may seem, what I have learned makes me feel better about what goes on at the Law School. Here is one example of a scam that seems over the line...

Summer Rerun: The Matrix

Posted on June 04, 2009
I think everyone has seen the movie, The Matrix. If you have not, it portrays the battle between being "real" and feeling good. In effect, machines have taken over the world and cultivate humans as an energy source. They--the humans--actually grow in really yummy looking little pods...

Summer Rerun: Captive Newspapers

Posted on June 02, 2009
If you live in a college town you are likely to find your local newspaper complicit in the preservation of control of the University by the elites. The Gainesville Sun seems to be a good example. The Sun, despite open meetings and open records law appears to have little interest in examing the University of Florida and seems wary of any op-eders who challenge them to do so...

Hypocrisy Studies

Posted on May 23, 2009
Ken Oldfield, referred to below in connection with his book, Resilience, Queer Professors From the Working Class, is engaged in a long term project, "Hypocrisy Studies." An excerpt from his entry on Scalia, the man who equates silk purses with admission to elite schools, follows:"Antonin Scalia, the U...

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