Liberating the Law Schools
George Leef argues that competence should be most important value in legal education
Author Profile
George Leef
George Leef is director of external relations for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Carroll College (Waukesha, WI) and a juris doctor from Duke University School of Law. He was a vice president of the John Locke Foundation until 2003.Prior to joining the Locke Foundation, Leef was president of Patrick Henry Associates, a consulting firm in Michigan dedicated to assisting others in advocating free markets, minimal government, private property, and individual rights. Previously, Leef was on the faculty of Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, where he taught courses in economics, business law, and logic. He has also worked as a policy adviser in the Michigan Senate.
A regular columnist for Forbes.com, Leef was book review editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, from 1996 to 2012. He has published numerous articles in The Freeman, Reason, The Free Market, Cato Journal, The Detroit News, Independent Review, and Regulation. He writes regularly for the National Review's The Corner blog and for SeethruEdu.com.
Articles by George Leef
Legacy Admissions – Affirmative Action for the Rich?
Should Junior Get In Just Because Daddy’s a Graduate?
A Challenge to Higher Education
A review of Anthony Kronman’s new book, Education’s End.
Look Before You Leap Into Government Intervention
Don’t Make a Political Issue out of College Endowment Spending
Teaching Teachers How Not to Teach
Do our schools of education really do good a job of training teachers?
Good News on Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Despite declining enrollments, HBCUs produce many of nation’s black scientists.
The Top 10 Clarion Calls of 2007!
From politically-indoctrinating professors to innovative educational programs, 2007 had it all.
“Conventional Wisdom” Not Always Wise
There’s a famous line of Mark Twain’s that goes, “The trouble isn’t what people don’t know, but rather what they know that just ain’t so.”
That’s every bit as true when it comes to education as in any other field. Ideas that people are certain are true because they’re heard them again and again are often untrue. They form the “conventional wisdom” that gets in the way of seeing things the way they really are.
In a new paper entitled “Over Invested and Over Priced,” Richard Vedder takes a critical look at several pieces of the conventional wisdom about higher education. Vedder, a jovial, outspoken economics professor (at Ohio University) has focused his attention on higher education for the last several years. He was one of the few people on the Spellings Commission who raised deep questions about the value students receive for all the money we spend on higher education. In this new paper, he continues doing that.
Still Needed: An Honest Discussion on Affirmative Action
How important is a college degree from a prestige school? Many believe that having such a degree is extremely important – a virtual guarantee of success in life. The higher education establishment works hard at propounding the idea that without a college degree, a young person’s life will be one of almost Hobbesian misery. The elite institutions go a step further and portray themselves as the essential training grounds for the nation’s leaders. If you accept those views, the destiny of the nation is largely shaped by who goes to college and where.
In his new book Color and Money: How Rich White Kids are Winning the War Over College Affirmative Action, Peter Schmidt has swallowed those ideas hook, line, and sinker. That isn’t surprising for a reporter who has been immersed in higher education for many years. Schmidt writes, “In modern American society, many of us assume – or at least desperately hope – that the people in leading positions in government, business, and the professions are our best and brightest….How do we decide who deserves such status? Generally, we rely on academic credentials. We entrust the task of identifying and training our best and brightest to our elite higher education institutions….”
Building Excellence into Higher Education
The American higher education system is often called the envy of the world. Many careful observers, however, find that much of what goes on in the name of higher education is mediocre or worse. The recent Spellings Commission found that American higher education is very high in cost, but to an alarming degree fails to deliver on educational basics for many students.
While the recommendations of the Spellings Commission focus on what the federal government should do, others in higher education prefer to focus on what individual schools should do to make their programs excellent. An assembly of leading educational observers will share their insights at the October 27 conference of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
Every fall, the Pope Center hosts a day-long conference devoted to a key higher education issue. This year’s conference, to be held October 27 at the Hilton RDU Airport-RTP, will be about educational excellence. Do we have it? If not, what can we do?
In addition to hearing nationally acclaimed speakers — from college presidents to intellectual flame-throwers — address these questions, participants can dine with the speakers in small groups the night before by attending the October 26 “Dinner with a Scholar.”