Charlotte Law appears to have died with the silent nobility of an old, used-up lawyer, a gentle, unadorned suicide when ends can no longer meet, the supply of inner justice has been exhausted, and the Million Dollar Express has reached its terminus. CLS made it a valiant eleven years, in the end losing a noble battle against the pernicious disease of educational pessimism. It was a preventable death, a testament to how far society still must go in the unyielding march of justice.
Preceded in death by a cousin. Survived by its loving parents, two siblings, and many many friends. Hobbies included understanding the nuances of justice in a postmodern multicultural democracy and rigorous, safe butt play.
Donations can be made to the American Bar Association. Or, you can find a lemming to help console the survivors with a fat tuition check. Have you considered that with one less law school, the demand for lawyers in the future just went from outstanding to outstanding plus? The forecast hasn't been this good in years.
As an aside, over the last week, the nation has become gripped by racial tension in the aftermath of events in Charlottesville because particularly inane white supremacists decided to support a cause that died one hundred and fifty two years ago. As the President has indicated, there are some fine, upstanding citizens in that group taking such a position that, on the surface, appears far more reprehensible than anything any law school has ever done. Indeed, you critics should consider yourselves lucky that law schools are bitterly fighting for the continuation of a status quo merely decades overdue for abandonment.
In any event, as the President noted, there's blame to go all around in Charlottesville, a position that could only be reached from the safe, philosophically nurturing environment of his gilded Manhattan tower upon appropriate reflection. There's lots that can be learned and applied to the law school context.
For one thing, consider the absurd chain of events that has led you to reading this particular blog with an intentionally tasteless invocation of a ridiculous national tragedy in an obituary for a shit-tacular law school. Given this sheer senselessness of human life, why not blow three years and run up six figure debt for a pointless degree?
The most important lesson, however, it's that law school lives matter. We forgot that lesson in letting Charlotte Law School die and leave our nation's 22nd largest metropolitan area without a functioning law school. As the President indicated, there's lots of blame on all sides in these situations. Fie on the students for refusing to pay tuition. Fie on the oppressive governments. Fie on the rival law schools for not taking a stand. Fie on the ABA. Fie on the fake new media.
In the wake of Charlotte's premature death, it's important that we heal and learn this vital lesson. Because God forbid we let it happen to any of the others. Paraphrasing Stalin, a single law school death is a tragic; a whole wave of them is really really tragic.
RIP, Charlotte. Here's to hoping your branch in the afterlife has a line of ghost marks out the door so you can, as we say, scam on.
Safe butt play? Might you be alluding to "Beadgate", in which red-velvet-cupcake-devouring Lisa McElroy broadcast pornography about anal beads to her students between self-aggrandizing articles about extremely expensive package tours? (http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.ca/2015/10/who-wants-to-be-lousy-fiction-writer.html)
ReplyDeleteThe timing on this one is edgy. Then again, the diploma factory charged over $44K in tuition and fees for the 2016-2017 academic year.
ReplyDeleteEdgy is starting a for proft law school on 2006.
DeleteNot sure how edgy starting the school was; they had a good 10 year run of living fat off federal loan dollars. My guess is that the ROI for Sterling was well over 100%.
DeleteWith one of the highest numbers of students as recently as a few years ago, Charlotte was the North Carolinian Cooley. It must indeed have been a lucrative scam in its heyday.
DeleteProfit-seeking law schools will, of course, want to draw in as many students as possible, since the marginal cost of an extra student is small compared to the $50k or so in fees that will certainly come in from the government or other sources. To draw in large numbers of students, however, they need either prestige (Harvard and Georgetown) or low standards (InfiLaw). Since an upstart cannot enjoy prestige, low standards are inevitable. And that's why InfiLaw and its ilk congregate in the low 140s on the LSAT.