The Faculty Lounge

Would You Write a Reference for a Mediocre Student?

Would you write a recommendation for a student you don’t know well and/or who performed poorly in your class?  Most people would say no.

Conventional wisdom is that most useful references (for just about any job) come from someone who (a) knows the candidate well, (b) can evaluate how the candidate compares to his or her peers, and (c) supports any claims (“great writer,” “careful thinker,” etc.) with specific examples based on first-hand knowledge. Other chestnuts include that one should decline to serve as a reference unless one has something positive to say about a candidate, and, if declining, say something vague like, “I’m probably not the best person to write a recommendation for you.”  I generally agree with all of these statements.  They amount, in my mind, to a loose set of “best practices” for faculty members who are asked on a regular basis to recommend students for jobs, clerkships, fellowships and the like.

Faculty members who teach big classes inevitably will be asked for a recommendation by a student who is a (relative) stranger or a poor performer.  Can the professor ethically agree to serve as a recommender?  Should the professor?   I think that the answer to both questions is yes, if the faculty member is willing to dig a little deeper with the student, and the student is willing to put in the time. 

I admit that sometimes I’d rather say no to a recommendation request than to have a 30 minute meeting with a student who never made an effort to talk to me (and vice versa) until that moment.  It is tempting to cut corners.  But I try to remember that most students don’t ask for references from a faculty member in whose classes they’ve performed poorly.  Nor do most students ask for references from a faculty member they’ve never spoken to outside of class before then. The student wishes he or she had other options, too.  Writing recommendations -- for these students, too  -- is part of my job, after all.  

 

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GW Law Names Maggs Interim Dean

George Washington University Law School named Gregory Maggs to serve as interim dean following  Dean Frederick Lawrence's departure to head Brandeis University.  Maggs was the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.  He is a double Harvard graduate, a former clerk to Justices Kennedy and Thomas and a special master to the Supreme Court.  He writes on UCC and national security issues, among other things.

Reliving (Legal) History

Know how fun it is to talk about a great party for days afterward?  Same thing with Legal History conferences.  Now that everyone has left Philly, (hopefully) having enjoyed the grand reception in Drexel's historic Main Building, pictured here, Mary Dudziak is reliving the highlights over at Legal History Blog.  She notes the winners of the Cromwell Prize, the Sutherland Prize, the Reid Prize, and the Surrency Prize.  And she promises more on the conference in coming days.  Head on over to her blog.  What the hell else are you doing this week, anyway?

Senate Approves "Crush-Video" Bill . . .

 

Now what?

Legally Tender? Selling the Body in Times of Economic Need

There are flourishing markets in human bodies and body parts, as Kim Krawiec has documented here, here and here, for example.  Eggs, organs and bodily fluids and sexual services can be bought for a price.  Today’s New York Times considers the flourishing Russian market in human hair in For Russia’s Poor, Blond Hair is a Snippet of Gold.   

Dark hair from India and China is more plentiful, but blond and other light shades are valued for their relative scarcity and because they are easier to dye to match almost any woman’s natural color. * * *  But as more of the world’s light-haired woman have climbed the economic ladder, the search for poor blondes willing to part with their locks has become ever more difficult.

“It’s not hard to understand why people in Ukraine sell their hair a hundred times more often than people in Sweden,” David Elman, a co-owner of Raw Virgin Hair Company, an importer based in Kiev, Ukraine, said in a telephone interview. “They are not doing it for fun. Usually, only people who have temporary financial difficulties in depressed regions sell their hair.”

Here in Mosalsk [Russia], a 16-inch braid, the shortest length a buyer will consider, fetches about $50 * * * Generally, about 70 percent of the hair bought in Russia comes from locks kept at home from previous haircuts. Some Ukrainian and Russian women, for example, traditionally cut their hair after the birth of their first child, and may decide only years later to sell it. In areas of dire poverty, it is a final resource to tap in times of desperation.

A few things about this article caught my eye.  First, the writer advances the hypothesis that the availability of blond hair has diminished as women’s economic power increases in blonde-dense parts of the world.  Second, the hair broker himself suggests that women are motivated by financial need, not “fun.”  Third, the majority of Russian hair for sale has been in storage as an heirloom, a marker of a life event (childbirth), a treasured keep-sake.  In sum, selling hair isn’t an economic activity just like any other.  It usually is motivated by economic need.

Kim Krawiec has argued in How is an Egg Donor Like a Prostitute?  that there is not much difference between egg “donation” and prostitution.  I agree with that analysis, and would extend it to selling hair, too.  It’s more comfortable to think of women who sell their hair as the impecunious-yet-plucky-and-hopelessly-in-love Della Young of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. But the New York Times article suggests that sellers of hair are motivated by miserable, unabated poverty.  If the body is one the few resources a person has, selling it seems like a rational choice.  Somehow, that choice seems less value-laden when it comes to hair than, say, sexual services (i.e., “traditional” prostitution).  Perhaps that is because society does not traditionally associate hair with virtue.  A woman’s (or man’s) hair will grow back, after all.  But sexual “honor” or “virtue,” once sold, can never regenerate (or so the story goes).

By the way, I have straight, shoulder-length red hair.  Starting price should be around $100.00.  See here.

Why do Lawyers Hate Law Professors?

I don't know that lawyers do hate law professors, but if I had to guess, I'd say that most practicing lawyers don't think too highly of legal academics as a group.  Earlier this year in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Professor William Pannapacker (English, Wake Forest) asked of the general public's attitude towards higher-education faculty members,"Why Do They Hate Us?" (pay site, sorry; day passes available).  He senses an anti-academic sentiment directed at professors "particularly in the humanities and social sciences—already the survivors of a 40-year depression in the academic job market." Academics, Pannapacker says, are “under siege,” caught in a perfect storm of anti-intellectualism, economic constriction and self-defeating practices.   

Two of the exogenous factors that Pannapacker identifies at the root of anti-academic sentiment -- the rising cost of higher education and what he calls the “changing job market” --  are familiar to most law professors.  We’ve been watching the cost of legal education go rapidly in one direction for years.  In 2005, former AALS President N. William Hines identified (here) the increasing cost of legal education as one of the ten “most important changes in the law school world in the last 25 years.” And employment prospects for law school graduates are especially grim (as the NY Times noted here, for example).  The bad news doesn’t seem to stop.

At least in the legal academy, why might economic constriction lead to anti-faculty sentiment?  The answer to that question lies, I suspect, in what Pannapacker calls an inability to “articulate a coherent vision of why others should value what we teach.”  Does the legal academy have a shared vision of what it is that law professors are doing (or should be doing)?  I suspect not.  More likely, if you ask 30 law professors why practicing lawyers should value what we do, you'd get 30 different answers.  I don't even think you could get a consensus -- among legal academics, at least -- on the question of whether law professors are (or should be) teaching students to practice law.  

Haiti: Commission Calls for Moratorium on Forced Evictions

 

In October, I was part of a team of advocates who testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights at a thematic hearing on forced evictions being carried out in displacement camps across Haiti.  We also filed a Request for Precautinary Measures asking that the Commission direct the State of Haiti to implement a moratorium on forced evictions and to adopt other measures necessary to protect the safety and security of people who live in the camps.

Last week, the Commission granted our Request.

The New York Times has reported that nearly 40,000 people have been evicted from the camps, and another 144,000 face a threat of imminent evictions.   The numbers alone are startling, but so too are the details of how these evictions are being carried out. 

On fact finding missions to Haiti, we documented cases where entire settlements have been destroyed.  In one case, armed police officers invaded a camp with state owned bulldozes late at night and demolished all of the shelters inside.  After residents pieced together new shelters, the police and the bulldozers destroyed them again.   The police have also beaten and terrorized people while forcing them out of the camps, and have arrested and detained those who protest their eviction.  Food, water and medical care are being withheld from camps targeted for eviction, leaving the people inside to starve, or to send their kids out into the streets to hustle for food and water.

The Inter-American Commission underscored “the importance of respecting international human rights obligations in all circumstances, in particular non-derogable rights and the rights of the most vulnerable.”  It directed Haitian authorities to:   

• adopt a moratorium on forced evictions from the camps
• ensure minimum health and safety standards in alternative settlements;
• provide judicial recourse to people who have been unlawfully evicted;  
• implement effective security measures to protect people in the camps, especially women and children;
• train security forces on the rights of displaced persons, especially as it relates to forced evictions;
• and ensure access to the camps by international observers.

The burden is now on Haiti to comply with these directives.  But donor countries also have a role to play, given their scope of influence over the reconstruction process.  Says Nicole Phillips, staff attorney at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti: “we hope that the international community will also respect these recommendations and assure that their actions do not directly or indirectly support unlawful evictions.”

-Kathleen Bergin

photo credit: International Action Ties

 

Law Dean News: Gonzaga Finalists & Colorado Search Committee Announced

Gonzaga Law School has named four of its five dean finalists: Annette Clark, Jane Korn, Chris Pietruszkiewicz, and Paul McGreal.  Meanwhile, the University of Colorado's Law School dean search committee was announced here. 

Update: I am told that there may be additional finalists beyond these five.  Gonzaga has not used the term "finalists" - though all of these candidates have come to campus and made presentations.

Welcome Guest Blogger Bridget Crawford

We're very pleased to welcome Bridget Crawford as a guest here at the Lounge.  Bridget is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at Pace Law School.  She is also a blogger at Feminist Law Professors.  Her primary fields of interest are feminist legal theory and tax - and unusual but pretty darn compelling amalgam.  Welcome, Bridget!

Quotas, Testosterone, and Board Dynamics (and Synchronized Swimming)

In an interview at the Women at the Top conference in London, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde spoke with the FT on video about her conference address (http://video.ft.com/v/677520169001/Lagarde-speaks-out-on-female-quotas). In the video (and in her conference speech), Lagarde comes out in favor of female quotas both in business and in political bodies.  Of particular interest to me is her statement about the need for quotas to enhance corporate board diversity. 

The conversation centers around the now-familiar contention that male testosterone is part of the reason for recent financial crises around the world.  Says Lagarde:

If you have too much testosterone spirit around, there is that atmosphere of trying to compete all the time, trying to prove yourself to the detriment of this sort of common interest that should bring us together. And I believe, either because they’ve been in the minority for such a long time or because there are some feminine values – and I have questions myself about it – but certainly those skills can be very helpful in softening, in tempering, in bringing a bit of sense when there is too much male competition around.

Lagarde goes on to say that when she was younger she was against quotas, but she now favors them, both on corporate boards and in the political arena, and discusses pending French legislation on female board representation. As an aside, I seem to be the last to realize that Lagarde was a Baker & McKenzie lawyer, and the first female president of the firm’s executive committee, an experience she discusses briefly in the interview.  She was also a member of the French national synchronized swimming team.  (I go back and forth as to which of these feats is the most impressive in a Finance Minister). 

I’ve lately been discussing a forthcoming paper, Dangerous Categories: Narratives of Corporate Board Diversity (with Lissa Broome and John Conley), and, in particular, our respondents’ claims about the unique “feminine values” that women bring to the boardroom.  The bulk of our respondents’ narratives on this front relate to women’s greater ethic of care and sensitivity to employees, consumers, and the community, rather than to female risk aversion.  

A few of our narratives touch on the risk reduction point, but normally the explanation given is that of reducing “group-think” and the risky behavior of bodies whose members all think alike, rather than the unique risk-avoidance tendencies of women as a group.  Said one respondent: 

regardless of what the statistical studies say, I think people know especially on the risk side that whenever you get anything involving sort of group think, everybody in the room having the same background, group of experiences and so forth that that is an absolute breeding ground for risk, for problems to occur.  . . . 

I think by and large the folks that believe that diversity is important put a very high value on it for that exact reason that they think this creates greater, frankly, psychological independence in the boardroom.  It creates more viewpoints in the board room and that leads to better decision making I think and I think that’s a change from certainly fifteen or twenty years ago when I think it was purely viewed in terms of sort of social equity issues about increasing participation by women and minority group members on boards of directors and I don’t see that as much today. 

I think the arguments in favor of board diversity are much more sophisticated today and that we’re really talking about trying to help boards to provide stronger oversight.  We’re trying to help boards to eliminate the possibility of groupthink, I think. 

The difference between Lagarde’s statement and our respondents’ theories regarding the impact of board diversity on corporate risk seeking is a subtle, but significant, one.  Whereas Lagarde, supported by some research on risk-seeking and testosterone levels in investor behavior, takes the position that women in the boardroom will decrease risky corporate behavior due to unique feminine risk-avoidance attributes, our respondents are making a point about risk-avoidance in heterorgenous groups more generally.

This is not to say that our respondents reject the notion of unique feminine qualities in the boardroom.  As I noted is a prior series of posts (see here, here, and here), many of our respondents generalized about women and the ethic of care in ways that were strongly reminiscent of Carol Gilligan’s feminist classic, In A Different Voice.  Yet those generalizations centered on women’s superior empathy and compassion, not on their risk-aversion. 

Either way, the potential dangerousness of such difference-based arguments for gender diversity is clear: to suggest demographic group-based difference of this sort is to open the door to both stereotyping and invidious comparison.  This tension is evident in our respondents’ accounts, which simultaneously extol difference and express embarrassment with it (and, in my opinion, is evident even in Lagarde’s brief account).

Image Source (traders)

Image Source (Lagarde)

 

Arguably the Finest All-Law-Professor Barbershop Quartet in Central North Carolina

The Old Growth Timbres, performing this past Thursday evening at Nic@Nite, an event sponsored by students at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences:

That's Holning Lau singing lead, with Victor Flatt on tenor, Jim Salzman on bass, and yours truly on baritone.

We are available for law professor weddings, law professor bar and bat mitzvahs, and comic relief at faculty meetings.

Harry Potter: Where Are They Now?

In my continuing obsession to understand everyone else's continuing obsession with Harry Potter, I came across this week's column by Michael Heaton in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Heaton muses about what happens to Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny when they hit late middle age.  It doesn't explain Harry Potter to me, but at least it explains what could be in Harry's future...

When Is Your Facebook Post A 'Client Solicitation'?

 

According to the Kentucky Bar, when it's of a "legal nature," and includes your name. 

 

 

Popular Law School Classes

I came across an old NPR story about a Harvard professor whose Legal History course was so popular that students had to enter a lottery for a coveted seat. What are some of the most popular courses at your law school?

Plagiarism and Cheating: Who's to Blame?

In the last 24 hours, two colleagues have brought to my attention cases of academic plagiarism at the professorial level, and another brought to my attention an article from The Chronicle written under a pseudonym by a man who makes a living from writing students' undergraduate and graduate research papers for them.  A number of questions arise from these examples of acdemic cheating and many of them raise difficult ethical questions to which I'm sure I don't have the answers.  The discussions I've had over the last day include questions like:

1. What do you do if you find out that someone else has plagiarised your work in a published article/essay?  Who do you contact?  The journal?  The authors?  What are the appropriate remedies, if any?  Any how much of this is a matter of opinion ie who makes the final judgment as to whether the allegation of plagiarism is sustainable or should be sanctioned in some way?

2. Who is to blame for what appears to be a creeping growth in instances of plagiarism at all levels of the academy?  Is it a result of time pressure?  Economic pressure?  Unreasonable expectations of academics and students?  Admitting people into programs who cannot cope with the demands of the program?

3. Should there be sanctions for professional "ghost writers" who write work for those unwilling or unable to do their own work?  On what grounds?  Presumably a student who employs a ghost writer will be penalized by his/her institution if the cheating is discovered, but what about the people and businesses who enable the cheating by providing the required services for money?

I would certainly recommend the article in the Chronicle as both an engaging and disturbing story which may be instructive for anyone involved in supervising graduate or undergraduate papers.  I would also be interested in other people's stories about how they have detected and dealt with academic plagiarism and cheating on assignments.

For the disenchanted . . .

 

Legal Historians Invade The Sixth Borough

As I noted over at Leiter, Drexel University School of Law is formally hosting the annual meeting of the American Society of Legal Historians starting this afternoon.  The conference looks to be excellent; the program is here.   Special kudos is due to my colleague Donald Tibbs, an amazing legal historian, teacher and (now we learn) conference organizer. 

Why call Philly the sixth borough, you ask?  I'm just following the Gray Lady.  But she's right - live here and you can get to work on the West Side of Manhattan in about 90 minutes, portal to portal.  Take that, New Springville, Staten Island!

Facebook v. Lamebook

Sounds funny, but it is an honest-to-goodness lawsuit.

 

Yo-Yo Ma, Stan Musial, Maya Angelou, Warren Buffett, and Jasper Johns: What Do These Individuals Have in Common?

They are five, of fifteen, individuals named today by President Obama as recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor.

The White House press release is here.