Reply to Why hasn't GMU surpassed UVA, W&M, VT?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Why hasn't GMU surpassed UVA, W&M, VT?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look at the number of Nobel prizes it won - it's more than the rest of the State combined. It's a world class university for blue collar workers . [/quote]

GMU has won zero Nobel prizes. Buchanan won when he was at UVA and years later became GMU professor.  Smith received the award while he was at George Mason, but it was for work He had done at Arizona.  [/quote]

And the Mason hater; both were part of the faculty when they won at GMU.

VA Tech people cry for not keeping Buchanan and Arizona for Smith; If you were a student of either when they won the Nobel Prize it was at GMU.

And don't forget Supreme Court Justices becoming visiting professors at GMU Law - who cares about ideology? You land a clerk position then you are set for life. Do you get that at the slightly higher ranked Law Schools?

And a few Pulitzer Prize winners.  A number which is within reach of UVA and W&M. Please don't bring up Poe - that was before GMU was even an idea.

Cry some more that your elite wine drinking snooty school hasn't destroyed the beer drinking blue collar working school. You think it's still an "only commuter school" or something more?
[/quote]

Ummm.  I think conflating law school and undergrad education is a mistake.  I also think the law school may attract far right judges since it changed its name. And that could be cool.  But you aren’t getting a clerkship with anyone but Thomas, and even then, you’d need to be strongly federalist society.  And there is a lot of extra backstory with the woman from GMU who clerked for him.  She made news for being ethically problematic (to put it mildly).  But there was more to the story. She lived with Thomas for a while, knew his wife, they mentored her, encourage her to attend law school. She was unusual circumstances. In general, GMU is not a SCOTUS clerkship pipeline. [/quote]

There is a big world of extremely prestigious clerkships below SCOTUS. It is like only focusing on HYP for college. Trump appointed a lot of federal judges below SCOTUS. And a lot of these judges are hiring clerks from GMU. Here's an article from a few years ago. 10-15 years ago I would be shocked if they got one a year. Though I will admit that it is ironic that Kagan is featured in this article. I'm still fairly sure the vast majority of the clerks are for Republican-appointed judges.

https://www.law.gmu.edu/news/2021/lucky_21[/quote]

Interesting. The article reports 21 federal clerkships in 2021, which seems high. Too high, so I checked. And when you look at the report to the ABA for 2021 (see link above), which must be accurate for accreditation purposes, they only reported to the ABA that 12 class of 2021 students headed into federal clerkships that year. And in fact, the number has fluctuated between 8 and 15 for each class 2019-2024. Which is about what I would expect, since there aren’t a ton of federalist society feeders (I mean, Ivy with demonstrated federalist bona fides kids are ideal, but not most of the class. GMU is unusual in that the school serves as a federalist society pipeline.  The other one is probably Liberty).   It’s actually smart positioning by GMU. But also, some went to Judges no highly qualified grad would clerk for because the a Judge is toxic to future career prospects. Aileen Cannon had her current clerks and the next years clerks quit over her Trumplove.

Anyway, 12 vs 21 is a big difference, not one kid dropped out/changed their mind. I genuinely wonder why the discrepancy? I was a federal law clerk for four years for a judge who believed in “career clerks” who had previous work experience out of law school (reality is it wasn’t really a career and 4-5 years was about average tenure for him). Mine was a BigLaw to Mommy track move, which was also typical for him.  And it’s pretty black or white. You are or you aren’t.  My guess is only 12 students secured clerkships in 2021, and the rest are class of 2020 grads on two year stints and/or class of 2020 clerks who move up (District to Appellate) or over to a different judge on the same Court, and they are counting all alums in clerkships at that point (including people like me, who hired and retained for efficiency rather than serving as a short term launching pad).  I’m giving GMU the benefit of the doubt here because article says they have started or will start a clerkship, and refers to students and alumni.  It seems to count all active clerks, and not just 2021 grads.

They do have one specific District Judge who hires from them and serves as a feeder to Thomas. It’s great bragging rights for the school if they say “we get SCOTUS clerks” and but not that this is a unique situation and, it’s hard to see it continuing once Thomas retires. Especially since this years GMU Thomas clerk had a really messy racist background, was enmeshed with the Thomas family (“almost their daughter,” helped his wife run her business, etc) before she attended GMU, and went to law school and GMU at Thomas’s urging (interesting, because Thomas has the pull to get her into almost any law school in the country and has zero problem using his pull as a Justice for profit). She got a ton of bad press when her clerkship was announced. Interesting read (gift link). I remember it because law clerks need to beyond reproach and should definitely been seen but not heard/known of. They are Hatch Act greater restricted, and the ethos everything you do, on the clock or off, reflects on your judge. So this situation (her texts include saying “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE”) really stood you.  If that’s the case here, then YOW.  From that standpoint, she is toxic and should have been blackballed but all Judges, federal, state and local.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/us/politics/clarence-thomas-crystal-clanton-clerk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.804.WXWa.ThLuicrv6CdV&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

In the long run, cr@p like this and the association with Thomas and his questionable ethics will probably hurt the school more than they help.

Other than that, their hiring profile is about what I would expect. Some BigLaw, but mostly a mix of small to medium firms, business and government. It’s a regional law school and most of the class stays in VA, MD or DC.  Middle of the pack law school plus Clarence Thomas. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics