Law School Mania

What do Belmont University and the Government of India have in common? Both are starting new law schools. For Belmont see http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_160497.asp . You can find India's announcement at http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/08234235/Government-to-set-up-four-law.html?h=B .

Belmont's announcement combines outdated projections on the need for lawyers (doesn't anyone in Nashville read Above the Law (http://abovethelaw.com/ )?) with institutional palaver. Given my limited time in India I can't say that four new law school are four too many but nonetheless I suspect the decision to create even more competition for low-end American legal work was motivated more by politics than a concern for justice.

Midterm Madness

For the first time at law school, I’ve given a midterm exam (or an “assessment exercise” in eduspeak).   My 1L Contracts students lost of day of instruction and I lost Fall Break.   Many years ago I had a surprise “pop” midterm my first semester of law school but never another.  Nor have I heard that other law schools are offering midterms.

Students seemed generally appreciative but other than anecdotally, I don’t know how to evaluate whether my midterm will have helped students on my final exam, much less on exam in other classes.

Addressing Economic Development

One of the curious experiences of our time in India was getting to places that have no street address. To drive to the home of one of the 2.5 million residents of Jodhpur required the name of their "colony" (subdivision), a landmark or two, and stopping to ask questions once one was in the general vicinity of the target. Important streets were named but most were not.

Now comes news that Garmin plans to introduce GPS navigation into India: http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/22144005/Garmin-Reliance-Retail-tie-up.html?h=B&sms_ss=email

Will this cause assignment of permanent street names and numbers into India's cities? I don't know but I certainly hope so. Mobile (cellular) phone technology has enabled India to bypass the enormous cost of investing in landline infrastructure. Use of mobile phones has contributed greatly to the flowering of small entrepreneurship in India. Similarly, I believe that reducing the human relationship factor in municipal navigation in favor of impersonal technology will boost economic development.

If You Don't Measure It, Does It Exist?

The mantra of education mavens is metrics: whatever can't be quantified might as well not exist.  Teaching by the numbers, so to speak.  Such "thinking" has left Virginia public school students with SOLs  (that's "standards of learning" for the scatologically minded) that mechanize teaching and stifle learning.  (Which is not to say that state-run education before the No Child Left Behind consistently amounted to much.)

Check out this map of the distribution of the Seven Deadly Sins: http://flowingdata.com/2009/05/12/maps-of-the-seven-deadly-sins/.  Its creators measured certain behaviors and think they measured sin.  What a joke.  Looking at this suggests that places like Sioux Center, Iowa are especially virtuous, and we know that's not the case!

Sin, as a rabbi (or guru, if you prefer) named Jesus, once said, comes from the heart.  Metrics of the heart?  No test for that -- at least not on earth.  So let's quit pretending that education can be reduced to rubrics and metrics and get on to encouraging real learning.

Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, and the Honey Bee Network

After leaving India in May I traveled to Taiwan where I spoke at three universities on various topics of American law.  I was only one part of this peripatetic lecture series.  Accompanying me were Seshan Radha from NLU-Jodhpur and her husband, Amar Singh, who is on the faculty at the National Law University in Delhi, as well as the Vice-Chancellor of NLU-Delhi, Rambir Singh.  Each of us had our sthick, so to speak, and Amar's was how the ever-growing TRIPS ("trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights") regime was unfair to possessors of traditional knowledge whose insights were appropriated by Western pharmaceutical firms without fair compensation.  I have my doubts.  Most traditional knowledge isn't knowledge, and the costs (and risks) of turning what is true into something marketable are enormous.

In any event, check the link below for an interview with the founder of an Indian organization that has combined the best of both worlds by identifying tens of thousands of valuable pieces of traditional knowledge and connecting them with firms that are able to develop and market products to the benefit of the rural poor and the suppliers of the needed capital:
Questions and Answers: Prof. Anil Kumar Gupta - WSJ.com

A Mother's Rights Vindicated

On 4 September I posted about the Indian Supreme Court judgment barring the abortion of the unborn child against the wishes of a mentally retarded 19-year old:  http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/09/buck-v-bell-india-style.html. I have since read the court’s opinion and corresponded with Bedi Tanu, the appellant's advocate who has practiced law for only six years. Along with her senior advocate, she argued the case to the High Court in Chandigarh but lost. Nevertheless, through the efforts of friends and colleagues in Delhi, an appeal was delivered to the home of the Chief Justice of India at 9:00 pm on Friday night, only hours before the abortion was scheduled to take place the next morning. Ms. Tanu argued the case on Monday after which a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court issued a short written order indicating its decision in favor of life, which was followed by the lengthy written judgment the last month.

I can’t summarize the meaning of this case any better than in the words Bedi wrote to me:

Every life is very precious. We have to see the world of others from their eyes and not our eyes. This girl has her world. We are doing nothing for her. We have no right to interfere in her world.  Her rape was and is a heinous offence. The offender is the rapist; the child is innocent. If the mother wants her child for any reason, we can’t question her motherhood instinct on the parameter of IQ analysis. The disabled may not express their desires so easily (though this girl expressed her's unequivocally) but that does not mean they have no wishes.  Disability is more in our perception, in our bias, than in the world.  Life for the disabled is difficult and now, when the law is recognizing their rights, we cannot allow our prejudice, our ignorance, our stereotyped approach, to come in the way of life of self-determination of the mentally disabled.

Waiting for Justice in Pakistan

Several weeks ago, I first commented on the news that Muslim extremists killed at least eight Christians in Gojra, Pakistan: http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/with-allies-like-this.html.   At least 100 homes were burned.   You can find a short video, which is simultaneously maudlin and graphic, at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa45t4_in-memory-of-the-christians-killed_news.

The official inquiry into the riots that killed concluded on Sunday, 6 September.  The news release reports that statements were taken from 580 witnesses.  The report has not been released as far as I can determine.  To date, Pakistani authorities have arrested and detained only a few.

The Government of Pakistan designated 12 August as “Minority Day.”  Even then, I commented that I expected that little would be done: http://pryorthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/minority-day.html   I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet but so far events have borne out my suspicion that Pakistan would do next to nothing to bring justice to the Christian community of Gojra.  In fact, local organizations report that the government has arrested Christians to induce them not to continue to press for action against the leaders of the attacks and that attacks and kidnappings of Christians have continued without serious police action.  As someone has commented, “There is no justice for minorities in Pakistan because it has a blind law, blind judges, and a blind head of state. “