Sunday, September 15, 2013

Pittsburgh's Proactive Morality

Does a semi-prestigious law school reduce class size because the quality applicant pool is shrinking and the oligarchs want to protect their lofty 91st ranking?  Oh, no, you rascally Ockham's Razor-happy fools, they did it because it's right:
"I made the strategic decision several months ago to substantially decrease the size of this year's incoming class ... not because we have been forced to, but because it is the right thing to do," Mr. Carter wrote in a recent email distributed to Pitt Law alumni. 
"The most important factor in our decision to proactively reduce the class size was the contraction in the market for entry-level attorneys," Mr. Carter said last week in an emailed response to questions from the Post-Gazette.
Since it's so into doing things because they're right in response to the dead entry-level market, obviously Pitt has proactively been reducing class sizes and slashing tuition for a decade, right?  Or. Mr. Carter's previous institutions were doing it, right?  Or he was at least speaking out about the need for law schools to lower enrollment given the low employment, right?

Proactive?  I've read it twice and I still chuckle at the audacity of the claims these overcoat overlords can spin.  I'm not worthy!

Thankfully, our nation's journalists mailed it in years ago, and I can safely assume that those e-mailed questions didn't include any targeted inquiries about why no one was cutting class size long ago, or at least in time to prevent $170k in total tuition with 50% legal employment odds.

Law schools and administrators were about as proactive as slipping on a condom after she's seven months along with mistake number two.  But if it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do, and now there will be no unemployed Pitt alums.

4 comments:

  1. http://www.law.drake.edu/admissions/?pageID=classProfile

    Third Tier Drake only has 113 full-time, first year students! When I attended that trash pit, first year class sizes tended to be 140-150 students.

    You're welcome, bitches! In fact, I am getting ready to email one of the hags to rub it in their face.

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  2. A beautiful example of deanspeak. Even when they are doing something praiseworthy, like reducing enrollment, they figure out how to sound like jackasses.

    The Pitt dean rebuts himself by describing his morally "right" decision as "strategic."

    Strategic: "relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them."

    Right: "morally good, justified, or acceptable."

    So which is it, a moral decision or a self-interested one?

    Proactive is a nice deanspeak word, in that it can describe any decision meant to influence future events, however belatedly. Is the decision "reactive" to Pitt's 22-place fall in the US News ranking? No, it is a "proactive" attempt to forestall yet another 22-place fall.

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    Replies
    1. But, as a reputable SCHOOL OF LAW, their strategy is always to do the right thing...

      Could you imagine if one of these scamsuits went deep into discovery and you got to depose one of these pseudo-lawyers for 3-4 hours?

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  3. You guys are very perceptive and make some good points. Carter is no saint, and is being both strategic (as opposed to good) and an attention hound here.

    It's interesting that Carter is pretending to respond to the job market. It's obvious that he's responding to a shrinking admissions market instead. And he's nowhere near being proactive, after years of disastrous job markets. However, he's doing what he has to do, and I'm happy that he has to do it. That shows how much the debate has changed over the past few years.

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