Purveyor of Iniquities

I don’t think he’ll mind me mentioning it, so here goes: Emmett found out today that he was not admitted to the University of Pennsylvania’s law program. Neither was I, though I found out much earlier than he.

Even brushing my personal feelings aside, there’s something rotten about this. Emmett is enthusiastic and articulate (a combination often rare) and, on paper as well as in person, a great candidate. Any law school rejecting someone like Emmett ought to reexamine their admissions policies and rethink their priorities.

Regarding my own prospects, I am frustrated by a process that seems no longer to be about legal thinking and philosophy, having been polluted, from the base, with piddling matters of identity politics and homogenous and trite rebellion. Law departments are politicized to an extent that transcends curriculum and precludes much vital debate. This isn’t just my own opinion; I’ve heard it expressed quite frequently by students at country’s top schools. Tellingly, though, few are willing to say as much publicly.

The new admissions conspires to keep would-be scholars like Emmett and me out of top schools while admitting revolutionary dullards and anyone with a professed interest in sticking it to the man. But are these students even those most able to affect change? Rarely do their beliefs seem deeply held and solemnly practiced; most holding them will go on to practice corporate law after, at most, a year or two as a public defender. And even those with a lifetime commitment to social work pursue it for reasons mostly altruistic, rather than philosophical. In other words, they might have learned law anywhere.

Fewer and fewer graduates from top law schools are going on, either immediately or later in their careers, to teach. And this makes sense: fewer and fewer have the capability. In the end, this process will inevitably catch up with those institutions that have thoughtlessly driven it, but, until then, it can be reversed.

My only hope is that snarky letters like this one can be a starting point:

May 15, 2003

Ms. —,

I write with some confusion in response to your letter of May 12 informing me of my place on the law school’s waiting list. This is the second year that I’ve been wait-listed; if anything, the law school’s responses to my applications have been perfectly consistent. That’s what causes me confusion: while your response has remained the same, my application changed markedly.

You see, this past year has been a successful one for me (though not, as of yet, with respect to winning admission to your law school). In it, I have earned one of the highest GPAs in my graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania, run two well-regarded political campaigns, and founded a non-profit newspaper that has already gained a significant circulation. True, I didn’t do any of these things to impress — University, but still: they seem pretty darn impressive to me.

Thus my confusion. I thought that my application of last year was passable but no more than that. At the time of its composition, I had serious doubts about whether I wanted to pursue a legal education and, if so, whether — University was a good choice for me at which to do so. But this past year, all that changed. I thought, if I may risk appearing immodest, that my application–especially my essay–rose head and shoulders above its predecessor. My doubts about attending law school were assuaged and then some, and I felt that this came through strongly in my writing. And I finally managed to achieve a consistent level of academic success that had eluded me throughout too much of college, while increasing my engagement outside of the classroom in politics and public policy, things that have always been important to me.

So, to be blunt, what gives? If my application of last year truly deserved to have been wait-listed, I should have been admitted this year without incident–perhaps even with some celerity. And if my application this year is truly wait-list material, last year’s ought to have been rejected out-of-hand.

I’m not angry, just confused, and would welcome any explanation you might have to offer. Of course, I’d welcome a letter of admission even more, but, the way things stand, I have no way to gauge the likelihood of that happening. That said, I do wish to attend — University and hope you will review my application and discuss with me whatever in it is lacking.

Attached to this letter is a lengthy article of mine in which several journals have expressed interest; I have hope that it will be published, after some revision, in the next year. I hope as well that it may give you an idea of the discipline and rigor that I bring to my work, as well as my breadth of interests.

Photographs of yours truly walking on water will follow.

Sincerely (but for that last line),

Andrew Grossman

And I will stoop no lower than that. I hope.