Monday, May 28, 2007

What does it mean to be "qualified"?

I've been hearing about the Justice Department controversy for quite some time now, but I only recently put several pieces of the puzzle together. Here's what I figured out...it's not revelatory, but it was news to me.

On NPR, there have been several discussions about it on the Diane Rehm Show, which I often listen to on the way to work. There had been mention of the hiring of a relatively inexperienced person to a high level Justice Department position. I later found out this was Monica Goodling.

On Real Time with Bill Maher, an HBO show that mixes comedy and serious discussion about current events with a panel of eclectic guests, Maher has several times referred to "Pat Robertson's Law School" and its "150 graduates who were hired by the Bush administration." (See video below.) Sometimes it's hard to determine if Maher is making something up to serve a comedic purpose, so I wasn't sure if such a place actually existed.

Well, it's actually called Regent University School of Law, it was founded by Pat Robertson, and there have been a significant number of its graduates hired by the federal government, including Monica Goodling (read about it here). The school was founded in 1986, but not accredited until 1996. It's ranked in the fourth tier (otherwise known as the last tier) of U.S. News' 2007 law school rankings and only 40% of Goodling's class in 1999 passed the bar exam on their first attempt. To be fair, U.S. News does indicate that its bar passage rate has improved to 61%. And maybe one of their newest faculty hires, John Ashcroft, will lend some credibility to the school, since apparently he was a voice of reason within the Bush administration.

I must say I was surprised to find that even the Merriam-Webster Dictionary's definition of "qualified" is very open to interpretation...

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