Posted by Jonathan Adler: Political Privilege & U. of Illinois Admissions: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_28-2009_07_04.shtml#1246217747
The Chicago Tribune [1]reports on a brewing scandal at the University of Illinois law school. Government officials pressured U. of I. administrators to admit politically connected but unqualified applicants. Paul Caron rounds up more coverage [2]here. As [3]Brian Leiter notes, many of those attacking U. of I. officials are missing the bigger picture. the University of Illinois is hostage to the public purse for a lot of its operations, so every request for 'special consideration' on admissions from a politician with influence on the purse strings comes with an implied threat: admit this student, or lose funding. One can be sure Chancellor Herman understands that. [4]Attacking university officials over this scandal is like attacking the victim of a robbery for handing over his money. Leiter concludes: "the same story is waiting to be written about admissions at every state university in the country." I would like to think that public universities in some states are more insulated from political pressure -- Illinois is Blago country, after all -- but that may be a bit naive. References 1. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ui-trustees-26-jun26,0,3541380.story 2. http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/06/illinois-admitted-unqualified.html 3. http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2009/06/the-chicago-tribune-series-on-political-muscle-and-u-of-illinois-admissions.html 4. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-clout.edit.sun.0628jun28,0,7498870.story _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list Volokh@lists.powerblogs.com http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh