Monopoly, Rudely Intruding on Monopoly Money

In the classic days of the scam, it was simply picking sides.  Leiter v. Campos?  Easy.

Now, in this post-transparency world where rational skeptics decry the virtues of law schools' papal-like beneficence in bestowing million dollar degrees upon the world, we no longer deal with situations where evil-appearing good must triumph over good-appearing evil.

Now we have nuance in our in-fought battles.  Much in the way the NCBE decided to suddenly go after the fine, hard-working students at places like Brooklyn Law, now LSAC is going after Arizona Law.

As the astute reader recalls, Arizona has decided to expand beyond the LSAT and allow applicants to take the GRE.

Like any good white collar leach, LSAC does not take kindly to assaults on its monopoly over admissions testing schemes.

LSAC’s general counsel in April notified Arizona Law that the school’s new policy may violate its bylaws, which require that “substantially all of” a law school’s applicants take the LSAT.

The group is considering expelling Arizona Law from its membership, which would effectively cut off the school’s access to a crucial student admissions pipeline.

Cutting off a law school's access to fresh applicants is like threatening to make a druggie quit cold turkey tied to a bed of spikes.  You're arrogantly poking a hornet's nest and asking to get mercilessly stung by an irrational fury that one cannot comprehend until it is far too late.  Indeed...

The school said it sent a letter back to the organization Friday that also warned of potential legal risks.

“We believe that your proposed action unreasonably restrains competition in the law school admissions testing market,” said Arizona Law’s dean, Marc Miller, in the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

And now it's on.

Who will prevail?

Is LSAC unreasonably getting in the way of Arizona's goal to haul in the monopoly money of student loans by taking the GRE?

Or is Arizona obstructing LSAC's ability to reap secondary profits by holding a monopoly over the absurd and outdated testing method used as a gateway to the legal profession?

In a rational world, a public university should care about serving the public interest and a nonprofit testing agency shouldn't give two shits whether it has a competitor or not, but we don't live in a rational world.  We live in a fun one.  And I hope they both find a way to keep milking their own respective teats.