Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Conceived in sin and born in corruption


Willie StarkSean Penn
Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.

-- Willie Stark in All the King's Men

MoneyLaw, according to its fiercest critic, "is going to become the poster child for corrupt law professors." Hey, it's great to have something to aspire to. Herewith Merriam-Webster's online definition of corrupt (adj.):
Main Entry: 2corrupt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French, from Latin corruptus
1 a : morally degenerate and perverted : DEPRAVED b : characterized by improper conduct (as bribery or the selling of favors) [corrupt judges]
2 : PUTRID, TAINTED
3 : adulterated or debased by change from an original or correct condition [a corrupt version of the text]
synonym see VICIOUS
- cor·rupt·ly /-'r&p(t)-lE/ adverb
- cor·rupt·ness /-'r&p(t)-n&s/ noun
Eugene TalmadgeMorally degenerate. Perverted. Depraved. Putrid. Tainted. Stern stuff, really. These are epithets generally reserved for bribe-taking, graft-dealing, cigar-chomping pols named Willie, Huey, or Gene. Growing up in Georgia (ours, not theirs), I always aspired to Southern feudal lord status. And now I've achieved it, teaching law up north. I know corruption when I see it.

Tell you what. This is the Jurisdynamics Network, technological playground of webmaster extraordinaire, Gil Grantmore. We'll put the question to a poll.

I've listed six activities in the poll at right. The first option is what Brian Leiter calls "Sextonism." The second is what the Chapman University School of Law has been caught doing. The third is my admittedly obnoxious characterization of some of the anti-Chapman reaction. The fourth, fifth, and sixth options are there for readers to point fingers at themselves, other readers, or legal academia more generally.

There it is. Polls will stay open throughout the weekend. Remember: it's one person, one vote, or at least one IP address, one vote. Gil Grantmore's polling technology is unscientific, but not corrupt.

1 Comments:

Blogger Jeffrey Harrison said...

I am just so sick of this. The North is always better -- the Red Sox, the Yankees, Ivy League Schools, lacrosse, blah, blah. And now Jim claims he had to go north to find corruption. No way, dude! If there is anything those of us in the South can match up on it is academic corruption. You name it and we have it:
1. Resume padding.
2. 15 page pieces of fluff claiming to be articles.
3. Tenure pieces sent to social and political friends for review.
4. Case books and treatises touted as scholarship.
5. Reporting part of our class to USNEW for the ranking chase.
6. Public subsidization of an LLM program.
7. Gobs of money spent to quiet the loudest whiners.

No, my friend. You want to see real corruption. Come South.

9/24/2006 1:59 PM  

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