CORE VALUES

A year or two ago I blogged quite a bit about collegiality and invoking collegiality as a way of silencing others. For example, if you do not like what someone was said and have no reasoned response, you play the collegiality card. I also attempted to draw a parallel between the tragedy of the commons and faculty collegiality and describe why the commons are destroyed by shifting standards and rules as well as gossip exaggeration and lies.

After a recent experience at my School, I am now wondering if law faculties are afflicted by a different problem in that there are so few core values. I am aware that what may be shared is that there are no core values when one wants something enough. In other words the one core value is that the ends justify the means.

The internalization of three core values could help faculties.

1. Tell the truth.

That is pretty easy, you would think but I am not sure. It may be that people are so driven by what they want to be true that the cannot see the difference between what is true and what is false. I've seen appointments meetings in which input given by faculty has been "misstated" -- the collegial way of saying what it actually is. People in meetings say they had no idea of a fact when they had been told. And then there is the usual B.S. -- this program meets many needs, this candidate is famous, etc. Finally, there are the weasels slipping from office to office with innuendo and lies. When zealots are so blinded that the they lose track of what is true, it's pretty much the end for faculty cohesion. A dean can remove people from key committees but he or she cannot bar them from their office to office rounds to serve up their little bit of poison.

2. Cause no welfare loss.

This one draws from economics and requires understanding the difference between a redistribution and a welfare loss. Sometimes decisions are made that mean a person or persons are worse off and someone else on the faculty or the students are better off. This could mean that a redistribution has occurred. On the other hand, some activities have no upside except perhaps the pleasure derive from harming others. For example, at recent tenure and promotion meeting, faculty at my school discussed candidates. Many positive things were said and a few negative ones. The Dean cautioned the faculty not to talk about the substance of the meeting. Within a few minutes of the end of the meeting it appears people had talked and named names. So think about it. The candidates may be tenured and become life time "colleagues" of the people who had reservations. The substance of the negativity could be communicated without revealing names. What was the upside of naming name? If you lack core values there could be two. The enjoyment of seeing people become enemies. The pleasure of chilling future discussion. It's a pure loss unless one views these as legitimate goals.

3. Transparency

This has more to do with committees and administrators than it does with individual faculty. Nevertheless, faculty are administrators and committee members and are tempted to keep things secret. Secrecy leads to uncertainty. Uncertainty caused by an information vacuum sucks in substitute information that may or may not be accurate. In effect, those who keep secret what they know that could reassure people -- that rules are accurately stated and consistently enforced, that their concerns have been heard, that there are no favorites, etc,-- are generally 1) not sure they can defend what they are doing or 2) feel they can but do not have the courage to deal with the fallout. In either case, it means a willingness to allow others to suffer. Of course, if it were for an honorable end, they could say that -- "I do not think it is in the best interest of the Law School to comment further."

I have seen these standards observed by different committees and administrators. What strikes me is how quickly they come to be trusted and how the stress level is instantly lowered. It is refreshing.

But the problem is this: it only takes a few who lack core values to screw it up for the community. I cannot help but wonder what their parents taught them.

MY FACULTY

No, I do not mean the faculty I am on which I assume is about like all others. What I mean by my faculty is the faculty I would choose or at least how I would choose it. First, I am starting from the proposition that there are oodles of people who can do the type of research and teaching law professors do. We pretend otherwise but, come on!

So, having satisfied those baseline standards there are two decision points I regard as critical for joining my faculty permanently. The first comes at hiring and would require answering a list of interview questions I have posted over on Moneylaw: Here they are:

1. What was your favorite book at age 15.
2. What were the last 10 books you read that had nothing to do with law.
3. Name your favorite opera, aria, sonata, symphony or any non pop, folk, alt music. (I mean one that gets you in the gut.)
4. What non law book is on the top of the stack on your night stand.
5a. What is your "car book" -- the one you keep in the car for waiting in lines or waiting rooms.
5b. What is your favorite pasta? (Opps, this question slipped in from the Italian cooking blog but it could still be important.)
6. Who was your favorite teacher before law school and why?
7. How would a Rawlsian design the faculty recruitment process?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. The only wrong answer would be not being able to answer and have an interesting discussion.

The next critical point comes at tenure time and, assuming there was an actual review process which the candidate passed. That's a big IF -- the part about having a real review process, I mean, as opposed to having enough buds on the faculty to get the candidate through.

I'd like to know the following:

1. How many times have you complained about your teaching assignment?

2. How many times have you insisted to a secretary that your work gets done?

3. Do you tend to go over your travel budget and then tell the Dean how you have to have more because of all your obligations?

4. How many days on average do you cancel class in order to consult?

5. How many nights (after 7) a semester are you out drinking or hanging out with the students?

6. How many times did you visit the dean's office or email the dean to complain about someone else without first talking to that person?

7. How many times per year did you, on your own initiative, visit the dean's office for any reason?

Wrong answers are as follows:

1. More than 0.

2. More than 0.

3. More than 0.

4. More than 0.

5. More than 1.

6. More than 0

7. More than 1.

So, my faculty would be full of interesting people and who require no special handling

Last to Know About Class

I am the last to know about last September 24th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education much of which was devoted to class on campus. There are several interesting tidbits in the lead article by Peter Schmidt. As he notes, unlike other minority groups, low socioeconomic class people tend to try to "fit in." No serious statistics are kept but it is estimated that 36 percent of students in post high school programs are children of parents who did not attend college. They tend to be concentrated in lesser colleges, two year colleges and technical programs.

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Schmidt and his sources say that socioeconomic class is no longer dismissed and is now"permissibly" to talk about. The idea that is Ok now to talk about class reminds of a conversation I had with a colleague several years ago. I asked him, "why not have a retreat and talk about class." His response, "Can't do that. It's too important." He captured it all right there. It was more important than all the other diversity concerns because it was the only one that could be accommodated without affecting the the elitist death grip on higher education.

Whatever hopeful signs the Chronicle reports to not appear to be found at law schools. The student body is already someone socioeconomically diverse, at least based on the students I know with crushing debts. Faculties, however, have not even begun to consider socioeconomic class diversity as anything to be taken seriously. Or maybe I have this wrong. Maybe as my friend suggested the reason it is ignored is because hiring committees and faculties do understand it's importance and it frightens them.

Do the Elites Avoid Numbers?

I wrote a post over on moneylaw about the way law professors handle empirical work. Basically, if it supports their political instincts, is is acceptable no matter how poorly done and, if it does not, it is poorly done no matter how well done. Especially, it is suggests any form or racism, sexism or homophobia it cannot even be examined closely. But now I am thinking there is a class angle on this. It is linked to my idea a few posts below that elitists do not like procedure. To put that idea in a nutshell, elitists are in a far better position to work the system than non elitists and rules just get in the way.

The same may be true of numbers or the quantification of virtually anything. For example, I feel sure that if I could produce an empirical study showing elitists are no more productive than non elitists as law professors, those in charge of hiring would ignore it. (I once did such a study and it showed no difference but once the school rank was above about 30 I could not find enough non elitist law professors for the study to be valid.) In effect, numbers can play the role of rules -- they make it harder to use connections, appeals to institutional authority and class as a way to prevail. At least they raise the cost of doing since they may need to be explained away.

The problem is that numbers can lie or can be used to support a lie as most of us know. So, they are not like procedural rules that can have a "veil of ignorance" appeal about them. Still, my sense is that, on balance, the elites would prefer not to be bothered with empirical evidence at all because, from time to time, a number may be produced that they cannot fully control.

Are the Elites Better Cheaters

I had seen this article a few days ago. Its title tells you the topic: The Shadow Scholar: The Man Who Writes Your Students' Papers Tells His Story. I had not read it all the way through and missed this excerpt which was brought to my attention by one of my favorite colleagues.

"From my experience, three demographic groups seek out my services: the
English-as-second-language student; the hopelessly deficient student; and
the lazy rich kid.

"For the last, colleges are a perfect launching ground‹they are built to
reward the rich and to forgive them their laziness. Let's be honest: The
successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly
not the most ethical. My favorite customers are those with an unlimited
supply of money and no shortage of instructions on how they would like to
see their work executed. While the deficient student will generally not know
how to ask for what he wants until he doesn't get it, the lazy rich student
will know exactly what he wants. He is poised for a life of paying others
and telling them what to do. Indeed, he is acquiring all the skills he needs
to stay on top."

As far as I know, law professors do not hire others to write their articles. But what if you could write a paper and it got a good grade whether it was deserved it or not. It's kind of the same thing. How does that work with law professors? There are four versions. The first three deal with the outside review of articles. In the worse cases, I know about the referee and the candidate work together to craft a good review. Then there are cases in which the subject matter is as much a political movement as it is an area of scholarly research. In these case the experts share the same political inclinations and the possibility of getting an honest review is close to zero. Once in awhile one of these articles will work its way into an honest reviewer and there are some concerns about what is written. If the candidate is liked enough, the negative comments are ignored. Finally, most reviewers do not say negative things. Why? There are may reasons but one is that it is rarely in the self interest of an elite to put anything negative in writing. After all, if the rational self-interest label ever fit anyone it is elite law professors. The last reason is the symposium matter. That is, you are asked -- usually by a buddy -- to write something for a collection. It is accepted without any review at all. (Even the student review process is better than this but not by much.)

The privileged will always find a way to work the system. After all, they created it and they own it!

P.S. After writing this another colleague read it and suggested that law professor do have others write their articles. They lift straight from the work product of their RA's. He also indicated that the bogus review letter problem extends to reviews of teaching.

Is it Stuck to Your Wall?

Your diploma I mean. Let's think about why someone frames and attaches or her diploma to the wall. Unless you just like to look at it yourself in case you forget you actually graduated, it's a form of advertising. Advertising can be good. It may provide useful information and lower the search costs of people who are buying what you are selling. A yellow page add that says "board certified" or even a framed certificate on an office wall may do that.

On the other hand, if you are a law professor, most people will assume you are qualified to be a law professor or that at least a small group of people in charge of hiring thought so. Your advertising falls into the category of an appeal to institutional authority. That is, if the institution from which you graduated has a good reputation -- an elite ivy league school, for example -- then you must be of similar ilk. The same is true if you feel compelled to name drop the name of your school whenever possible. (I have been told that a survey of Harvard grads in conversation found that on average "Harvard" is mentioned within the first minute.)

The problem is that this does not lower search costs but actually raises them. What we know is that some elite school grads are terrific law professors and some are awful. The same is true for non elite grads. Hanging the diploma on the wall can and often is misleading. It's a practice for those who are afraid to be identified by what they actually do.

Paying the Bill for Obama's Elitism

I do not know if it would have made a different in the elections. I doubt it but at the margin there is no doubt that Obama's elitism hurts. It was displayed most prominently during the BP disaster. For me, though, the biggest missed opportunity was the Kagan appointment. Just think what a difference it would have made if he appointed an equally qualified southerner mid-westerner or rust belter . Maybe someone with an actual drawl! Just the photo ops would have been worth votes at least in the appointee's home state. Instead we get a privileged ex-Harvard dean. This Times article covers some of the problem. As it notes, Obama was not raised to be an elitist. Instead it was an acquired characteristic.

In some ways, everything works against him. I've know some pretty unpleasant people who get away with it because of a perpetual smile, an aw shucks manner or a boyish or girlish facial structure. And then there are people like Obama who seem stuck with a stern look, seem always stiff, and are so careful in their wording that it becomes excruciating to listen to. It's so bad that even the imagery of just having a beer does not work. These things he cannot control and it is ashamed. Somewhere in there there may be a non elitist who is afraid to show it because he has invested so much in getting the role right.

Unfortunately, now others pay the price.