She tried to keep the guys off.
The woman shows a healthy sense of irony. (“Any more phone calls to make to influential people just to make sure they feel the love?”) She’s even clever at making up words (Provostian!).
But the dean of the law school at outed, clouted University of Illinois wasn’t able to fight off the governor (Blago at the time) and his cloutslaves at UI. Heidi Hurd was forced to admit a whole raft of the well-connected.
At one point in March 2007, Hurd asked staffers to collect data about how the clouted students performed at law school to provide a weapon against their admittance.
Admissions dean Paul Pless reported that the school admitted at least 24 “SI,” or special interest, students during a four-year span. He said they had lower grades and standardized test scores than the general applicant pool and they lagged behind their classmates once admitted. On average, they maintained a 2.86 grade point average during their first year compared with the 3.2 grade point average for the overall class, he said. One faced “formal disciplinary charges” and left the school.
But their dislike of the program didn’t stop administrators from accepting the 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.
Payment here meant guaranteed jobs in Blago’s government. A perfect fit! And after all, as the immortal Roman Hruska reminded us, the mediocre too are entitled to representation.
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UD is very grateful to Wendy and James for the link.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:02AM
BTW, Heidi Hurd stepped down as dean of the law school in 2007. Wonder why?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:35PM
Some coverage over at Althouse, who takes note because it involves law school admissions:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-does-it-cost-to-get-unqualified.html
June 26th, 2009 at 5:33PM
wayward, RJO: Many thanks for the information/link.