Harvard First

I thought I would not return to this topic but the idea that I would automatically vote against a candidate who lists Harvard first on his or her resume has annoyed more than a few people. One thoughtful commentator writes:

"Frankly, I think your policy is just a thinly veiled means to automatically disqualify people who attended elite schools."

I did not mean to thinly veil anything. I do not want to hire those people. I do not think they are better scholars or teachers and legal education is so awash with professors with elite (but not necessarily complete) educations we could put a moratorium on hiring them for years and still not markedly change the face of law teaching.

In addition, the annoyance seems odd to me. Candidates have been eliminated on the basis of the school attended for as long as I and perhaps anyone can remember. My School's recent practice is not exceptional by a long shot. This discrimination has been so consistent that people with "inferior" degrees are routinely advised not to submit an AALS form and, when they do, they often have few if any interviews. And, now when one professor says he may turn the tables, there are people crying "foul" allegedly on the basis of the process I have advocated which happens to be the same process that has always been used, only with a different outcome. Frankly, I think the complaining is a thinly veiled effort to protect the privileged.

Another complaint is that listing the school first is just convention and that it is silly for me to respond to it. Generally, conventions last because they work and listing the school first helps hiring committees separate members of he club from candidates who are not members of the club. If a resume is about supplying relevant information then candidates should start with publications, move to job and life experiences, and then to class rank and other indicators of law school success.

The name of the law school is only relevant for diversity purposes. With apologies to those who incurred great debt and overcame barriers to get into elite schools, a rough rule of thumb is that a graduate from one of those schools is unlikely to bring class and life experience diversity to a law faculty. Think this is absurd, harsh, unreasonable, unproven, veiled, etc.? If so, what do you make of the policy of admitting very few of the graduates of any law school beyond the top 10 on the theory that they are not smart enough, intellectually curious enough, industrious enough, or sufficiently knowledgeable to be a law professor?