Althouse: "Between Harvard Law graduate Obama’s knowledge of constitutional law..."

April 13, 2012

"Between Harvard Law graduate Obama’s knowledge of constitutional law..."

"... and Harvard Law professor Elhauge’s poor legal research/analytical skills, I’m beginning to really doubt the value of a Harvard Law education."

25 comments:

Scott M said...: He was probably writing in shorthand. Apparently they teach all their students how to communicate with the great unwashed only through shorthand.; 4/13/12, 4:07 PM
traditionalguy said...: That is a good question about the Harvard Law and class snobbery.

But then Elle Woods legally blonde head was at the top of her class, and that's good enough for me.; 4/13/12, 4:10 PM
rhhardin said...: Obama's degree is an affirmative action Harvard degree, which is a different category from the regular ones.

It's pretty bad when math majors spot a legal fraud.; 4/13/12, 4:16 PM
Peter said...: They just now discovered that students don't pay for the quality of education, they pay for the brandname on the degree?; 4/13/12, 4:27 PM
Peter said...: They just now discovered that students don't pay for the quality of education, they pay for the brandname on the degree?; 4/13/12, 4:28 PM
Andy said...: Obama's degree is an affirmative action Harvard degree, which is a different category from the regular ones.

I wonder if conservatives learned anything after they tried calling Sonia Sotomayor dumb because she was a minority with a law degree. Apparently not.; 4/13/12, 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Here are my two premises:
(1) Graduating from a place like Harvard, or any other Ivy, does not mean that you actually learned anything there.
2) Your alma mater is more of a signaling device that you are the type of person "good enough" to go to Harvard.

Given that, we should all skip the middle man. If students are accepted to a highly competitive college, they should just keep their acceptance letters. These have become the equivalent of the diploma. Employers get the same information, people can start careers earlier and save a boatload of money.; 4/13/12, 4:41 PM
rhhardin said...: Nobody who knows the law is going to talk about it the way Obama does. He's a moron.; 4/13/12, 4:50 PM
jimbino said...: Harvard cannot turn sows' ears into silk purses. It accepts the cream and graduates cream+. Big deal.

An employer, including a law firm, would do almost as well in hiring the newly matriculated (e.g., Zuckerberg, Dell, Gates, Jobs) as they would in hiring the graduates.

Those who matriculate but who can't afford the outrageous fees are given a free ride by Harvard and others of its ilk. Those who can pay, will pay, with the result that Harvard represents as much a wealth transfer as it does an education, not unlike Obamacare, which represents, more than health care, a wealth transfer from single, childfree, young men to breeding women and old folks.

All in all, health care and education, whether primary, secondary or beyond, are great socialist vehicles for transferring wealth from the haves to the have-nots.; 4/13/12, 4:53 PM
Wince said...: [Ehauge] breathlessly recycles the same two supposed precedents for economic mandates under the Commerce Clause that have been much discussed over the past two years. The first is the requirement that ship owners provide insurance for their sailors. While navigation laws such as this one were an exercise of the commerce power, it is a garden variety regulation of how commerce, in this case the activity of shipping, is to be conducted. To be subjected to this regulation, you first have to engage in the commercial activity of shipping, or what was called, “the carrying trade.” The fact that this particular regulation required ship owners to provide insurance does not distinguish it from, say, regulations providing for life preservers or life boats (which also have to be purchased!).

I suppose the modern analog would be the
Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), a federal worker compensation law, which "provides employment-injury and occupational-disease protection to approximately 500,000 workers who are injured or contract occupational diseases occurring on the navigable waters of the United States, or in adjoining areas, and for certain other classes of workers covered by extensions of this Act.

These benefits are paid directly by an authorized self-insured employer; or through an authorized insurance carrier; or, in particular circumstances, by a special fund administered directly by the Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs within the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)."; 4/13/12, 4:57 PM
edutcher said...: Even his students said law lecturer Obama didn't know his stuff.

Andy R. said...

Obama's degree is an affirmative action Harvard degree, which is a different category from the regular ones.

I wonder if conservatives learned anything after they tried calling Sonia Sotomayor dumb because she was a minority with a law degree. Apparently not.

Maybe because like her pal, Kagan, she made an ass of herself at the ZeroCare hearings.

OTOH, we can all wonder how much the Lefties have learned after 20 years of calling Conservative hero Clarence Thomas dumb in the face of his growing reputation among legal scholars.; 4/13/12, 5:08 PM
Matt Sablan said...: Credentials are important though!; 4/13/12, 5:24 PM
Comanche Voter said...: Affirmative action degree? Heck Yes.

Obama is probably the ONLY President of the Harvard Law Review in recent memory to

(a) get the job without having produced a note or comment of publishable quality [most law reviews require that their members produce such a work in their first year on the review--it's a prerequisite to staying on the Review for a second year];

(b) to not go on to a Supreme Court Clerkship or a Circuit Court Clerkship after graduation;

(c) to not wind up in a fancy white shoe law firm or as a permanent professor (not some half assed adjunct slot) at a decent law school.

Obama may have fooled his fellow Law Review members--although I understand he was elected as a compromise candidate with bitter factions opposing each other. But he didn't fool any prospective future employers.

Obama's flossy academic credentials are mainly iron pyrite--good for fooling the rubes--but not the real prospectors for legal talent.; 4/13/12, 5:38 PM
Petunia said...: Everything Obama has achieved, including the presidency, he's achieved through affirmative action.; 4/13/12, 5:51 PM
somefeller said...: It's no surprise that a Yale Law grad like Glenn Reynolds would find that comment to be amusing and worth repeating. Just another example of ribbing among rival schools. Sort of like Longhorns and Aggies making fun of one another, only with less physically attractive people involved.; 4/13/12, 5:58 PM
somefeller said...: Obama's degree is an affirmative action Harvard degree, which is a different category from the regular ones.

Funny, I don't remember that being one of the degree plans available when I was there. But then again, I spent a lot of time at the Kong so it's possible I didn't notice that one. But I doubt that.; 4/13/12, 6:02 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/13/12, 6:15 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/13/12, 6:17 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Jimbino,

Harvard cannot turn sows' ears into silk purses. It accepts the cream and graduates cream+. Big deal.

They definitely do have their share of the cream. But many other schools do too, for all the different sorts of reasons that students choose to go here rather than there.

But let me tell you, I bump into Ivy Leaguers around DC all the time. A disappointment doesn't begin to cover it.

The school that in my limited sample size comes across best is MIT. Harvard seems to specialize in assholeology.; 4/13/12, 6:54 PM
MadisonMan said...: To understand more fully the value of a Harvard Law degree, one must consult with a Harvard-trained Economist, and they will assure you that yes, indeed, a Law Degree from Harvard is very very valuable.; 4/13/12, 7:02 PM
Nora said...: "... I’m beginning to really doubt the value of a Harvard Law education."

I remember reading quite a few years ago about survey that shown that Ivy law degree gives benefits only for the first 5 years after graduation, i.e Ivy league lawyers start at higher salaries, but after 5 years their earning are the same as the rest of the graduates. I remember thinking then, that this means that Ivy lawyers' earnings actually fall relatively to the rest, which the article did not point out.; 4/13/12, 8:10 PM
Methadras said...: This is clearly an example of why precedent law should not be used. At all. The militia act of 1792 regulated a specific set of people to have to buy a specific set of something by law. It was illegal to do back then as well, but yet, it was passed into law. However, the distinction is, is that the act also mandates under the militia act that:

IX. And be it further enacted That if any person whether officer or solder, belonging to the militia of any state, and called out into the service of the United States, be wounded or disabled, while in actual service, he shall be taken care of an provided for at the publick expense.

Furthermore in Title 11, section 4 it says:

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the militia employed in the service of the United States, shall receive the same pay and allowances, as the troops of the United States, [omitted in 1795: "who may be in service at the same time, or who were last in service, and shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war"]: And that no officer, non-commissioned officer or private of the militia shall be compelled to serve more than three months in any one year, nor more than in due rotation with every other able-bodied man of the same rank in the battalion to which be belongs.

What this act basically does is that anyone in the militia and is a seaman will be treated to the same equal pay and care as normal troops. It normalizes the different military style services as being distinct but being treated the same.

I believe that the professor took the 'mandate' out of context to mean that congress can mandate via the militia act, but not the commerce clause, can impose these regulations onto businesses that are conscripted into service for the purposes of warfare. The healthcare portion is umbrella'ed under that act, not the commerce clause. BIG DIFFERENCE!!!

Read the act: http://constitution.org/mil/mil_act_1792.htm; 4/13/12, 10:00 PM
Mark said...: We are all sailors on this ship of fools. So heed the Good Captain Ahab and fork over the gold that is yours for your own damned good.; 4/13/12, 11:52 PM
Jim in St Louis said...: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YizxVlKG8CQ

Only 52 sec, Ha !; 4/14/12, 5:58 AM
FreddyB said...: Harvard is probably better than Georgetown, though, because their students actually testify before congress that they haven't read, let alone understood, the contracts they're party to.; 4/14/12, 6:24 AM