Decades ago, the left captured the legal profession, turning it into a big part of their agenda for demolishing our traditions of free enterprise, private property, individual liberty, and limited government. Today, our law schools, especially those regarded as “elite,” send forth hordes of graduates eager to use our legal system for their ruinous purposes.
In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Michael Kochin argues that we need to change the way we admit law students.
He writes, “Patriotic higher-education reformers should think differently about both merit and diversity. Bar-passage rates give us an external check on the quality of legal admissions and education, but, above a certain floor, differences in grades have little predictive value either for bar passage or professional success, especially when compared to other markers of individual merit. And diversity is valuable to the country not so much in distributing the ostensible rewards of entry into the legal profession (and especially the elite legal profession) but in ensuring that our laws are made and enforced in ways that take account of a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives—crucially, all from people who show a basic commitment to advancing America according to their own lights.”
He would like to see more law grads who have an interest in defending and rebuilding American values, fewer who will catalyze radical change.
Kochin continues, “Holistic admissions inherently reward applicants who have been socialized into reflecting the exact ideological preferences of the admissions committee. By forcing elite schools to base their selectivity (above the LSAT and GPA floors) on four criteria—the military, the K–12 classroom, STEM, or athletics—we replace the subjective, easily gamed metrics of university bureaucrats with transparent criteria that reform the student body to advance America.”
Of course, his proposal isn’t going to happen, but it’s food for thought.