blagojevich scandal reaches university of illinois law school admissions office.

[cynthia]

In case you hadn't heard, it's WTF Is Up With Law School Administrators Week.

In addition to the drama at DePaul, things at University of Illinois are also reaching a "oh no they did not" boiling point, due to some investigative work done by the Chicago Tribune when they asked themselves: "What does it cost to get an unqualified student into the University of Illinois law school?"

According to the Tribune and internal emails released earlier in the week, all it costs is a handful of jobs for U of I law grads. Now that's taking a creative look at career services!

"In one e-mail exchange, University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman forced the law school to admit an unqualified applicant backed by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich while seeking a promise from the governor's go-between that five law school graduates would get jobs. The applicant, a relative of deep-pocketed Blagojevich campaign donor Kerry Peck, appears to have been pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley, who often carried the governor's admissions requests."

When Law School Dean Heidi Hurd balked on accepting the applicant in April 2006, Herman replied that the request came 'Straight from the G. My apologies. Larry has promised to work on jobs (5). What counts?'

Hurd replied: 'Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar.'

Hurd's e-mail suggests that students getting the jobs are to be those in the 'bottom of the class.'"

I'm not really sure what to say about that. It looks like Illinois politicians aren't sure what to say, either. So far, a state commission has been convened to investigate those administrators implicated.

Dean Hurd apparently spent a lot of her work-time hating her students, as the emails characterized her as one who "showed [her] disdain for the special admits and even worked behind the scenes to campaign against them" at the same time as she was "[operating] a parallel admissions review for clouted students."

"I'll do my best to keep the number of Provostian admits to a minimum, and extract payment for them," Hurd wrote to her admissions staff in 2003.

At least 24 "special interest" students were admitted over a four year span, indicating that despite their dislike of politically-connected students, they weren't willing to give up the lucrative possibilities of their admittance. In a sense, these "clouted" students were admitted for their potential to serve the school, like really fucked up and sad athletes.

So why'd they do it? My guess: the US News rankings, of course! Job placement after graduation accounts for 18% of a school's US News ranking score.

Comments

[Non special admit from U of I]

Hurd replied: 'Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar.

Disclosure: I am a U of I law student.

Comment: I am by no means an expert on this situation, but I believe the above statement (quote from Dean Hurd) was meant to be sarcastic.

[IPFreely]

To "Only very high-paying jobs in law firms that are absolutely indifferent to whether the five have passed their law school classes or the Bar", today I'd have added

1. Seven tickets to Michael Jackson's next concert

2. Five letters of absolution from Pope Benedict

3. Dennis Rodman's Bulls jersey.

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