Tuesday, October 28, 2003

More on affirmative action at U.Va. law school, and law school in general

The Curmudgeonly Clerk has this post in response to the third-year law student's letter to the Washington Post on the subject of diversity at the University of Virginia law school.

Mostly unrelated to diversity, down the page the Clerk has this post on the use of the Socratic method in law schools, which concludes with this delightful story:

"One day in my first year Criminal Law class, the professor was mercilessly grilling a rather reticent female student. He asked her to recite the facts of a case. When she began a meandering recital replete with irrelevancies, he began to mock her. He proceeded to interrogate her; each question was dripping with sarcasm and condescension. The purport of his inquiries could not have been more clear: he wanted her to focus solely on the material facts. She, however, was too befuddled and flustered to grasp his point. So the professor proceeded to the student seated next to her and asked, 'Why am I mocking her?' Unfortunately for the professor, this student was honest to a fault. Without pause, he responded, 'Because you are a jerk.'"

No comments: