Steven Harper Hates Flowers And Other Stuff

Steven Harper, Professor at Northwestern, seems to hate flowers. Steven Harper also (apparently) hates innovation, competition, and access to professional education, not to mention the careers of those at lesser law schools.

From Harper in the Hatermill that is Law.com in response to a well-reasoned op-ed by Dean Huffman of Lewis & Clark:

[Huffman] proposes to end that crisis by helping marginal law schools devise a way to remain in business. Specifically, he thinks that removing most accreditation requirements would unleash a wave of innovation in legal education and "let a thousand flowers bloom."

Here’s a better idea: prune the garden.

Only a sourpuss could hate flowers. Harper's advocacy of wide-spread de-flowerization is downright repugnant and elitist in favor of those gardeners whose flowers are secured behind the walls of prestige (like, say, Harper).

What else does Steven Harper show disdain for?

Free-market capitalism:

Huffman’s non sequitur fails to reflect the ABA’s most obvious contribution to attorney oversupply: accrediting too many new schools—15 since 2003 alone.

Oh, and good salesmanship:

deans free until recently to engage in deceptive behavior to fill their classrooms. Graduate employment rates looked great when schools could include short-term and part-time jobs, work that didn’t require a law degree, and temporary positions that the schools themselves had created. 

And objective ranking schemes that benefit consumers:

Rankings have become central to their business models and the youngest generation of lawyers is paying the price.

American-style innovation:

Allowing schools to increase their use of cheaper non-tenured faculty and to offer on-line classes, as Huffman suggests, won’t solve that problem. 

And the 1st Amendment:

The plethora of deans publishing op-eds in major newspapers presents a new danger. 

So in conclusion, Steven Harper is one big Negative Nancy.

The world needs flowers. It needs all kinds of flowers: roses, tulips, pansies (LOTS of pansies), orchids, daisies, carnations, you name it. For a person to claim the authority to rid the world of whole species of flowers (especially of useful varieties like the shabbius docreviewerus) is just plain wrong.

And for the Phoenix Law Grads: I'm using a metaphor.

So favor species diversification and KEEP OUR LAW SCHOOLS OPEN.

Also, for the gentlemen out there, kindly remember that chicks love flowers, and more than just roses (say, Harvard). Why, I remember one time I took a girl lillies and I got laid from l to d. One time I picked a dandelion near a park bench and got a date out of it. 

The point of my anecdotes is that you can get a degree from Northern Kentucky (a goldenrod) and YOU will be swimming in poontang.

Even if Steven Harper and his "prune the garden" attitude apparently hate the act of human love.