Further Thoughts on College Recruiting . . . and Admissions

College coaches zig-zag across the country looking for players for their teams.  Players similarly zig-zag across the country looking for their college campus of choice.  And between them we find a number of recruiting services willing to tell you what they think about any particular player.  Scout.  Rivals.  ESPN.  Any guy with a clipboard and an internet connection can start one.

So here is what I find intriguing about all of this: how accurate are these services?  How accurately can these recruiting outfits prognosticate whether a high school player will become a college star or bust?  For all the angst and energy that college fans now spend on national signing day, this would appear to be the only question worth asking.  The answer should not surprise anyone. 

How the NCAA Fails its Athletes

Today is national signing day.  This is the day when high school seniors formally pledge their allegiances to their colleges of choice. It is also the day when these seniors formalize their status as a cog in the much larger and unwieldy college football machine.  This is the moment when these students realize their dreams by becoming the means of production.  The colleges and the NCAA make a lot of money -- this past bowl season, for example, the BCS system produced a record profit of $170 million -- and the players see very little of it.  And they better not even think about selling their uniforms, or useless trophies or championship rings.  Needless to say, that would be illegal -- only the NCAA gets to make money from the sale of jerseys. Also, their parents better not try to get some of that money.  That also would be against NCAA rules.  And who gets to make money from the sale of the images and likenesses of star college athletes?  The NCAA, of course.  The athletes don't get a dime.  They are amateurs, after all.

How convenient. Can you think of a better system of exploitation?

But it gets better. Much better.

Reflections on Judge Vinson's Healthcare opinion

Luis's trenchant post on Judge Vinson's healthcare opinion prompted me to reflect on both the opinion and Luis's observations.

(1) After the passage of the Patient Affordable Care Act, I thought challenges to its constitutionality were frivolous.  That is, I did not think that those challenges would be taken seriously by any federal courts.  Clearly, I was wrong.  Let me be clear, I do not think that the Act is remotely unconstitutional.  But I did not think that there was one federal judge, much less two who would conclude that either the whole Act or parts of it are unconstitutional.  I remain skeptical that a circuit court will find the Act unconstitutional, but I would not wager my house on it.

Nevertheless, the fact that two federal judges have concluded that the Act is unconstitutional means that we are now engaged in a serious, non-frivolous legal debate over the Act's constitutionality.  Moreover, now that two federal judges have gone this far, a third conservative federal judge might be more inclined to follow suit.  Indeed, Judge Vinson seemed to find comfort in Judge Hudson's earlier opinion, which found the Act's individual mandate provision unconstitutional, though unlike Judge Vinson, Judge Hudson did not strike down the whole thing.  As a consequence of the decisions of these two judges finding the individual mandate unconstitutional, it would not surprise me if subsequent district court judges, those inclined to strike down the Act, were bolder and more forceful in their approach.  Finally, one must conclude that the possibility that the Supreme Court would find the Act unconstitutional is not far-fetched.  Institutional considerations might push the center-right Justices on the Court toward restraint.  But again, I would not bet the farm on institutional prudential considerations.

(2)  Luis is clearly right that the legal attacks on the Act are simply the continuation of the policy debate.  Courts are simply the new arena.  Now the fact that these are political attacks does not mean that they are inappropriate or "illegitimate."  That is, courts can be appropriate sites of political constestation (or at the very least, I do not mean to say that they cannot so be.)  But we should recognize that these lawsuits are simply rehashing the policy debate that we were having a few months ago in Congress.

When I read Judge Vinson's opinion, it is clear to me that he is substituting his views of (a) the proper policy to be enacted and (b) the proper role of the federal government for those of the political process.  In my view, the weakest part of Judge Vinson's opinion are pages 45-52 where he is addressing the government's argument that the healthcare market is unique and therefore the Act is good policy.  The government argued that the market is unique because (a) people can't opt-out of the market: there is a strong likelihood that we are going to be sick and will seek healthcare; (b) when people seek healthcare hospitals are required by law to care for them regardless of their ability to pay; (c) the cost of care for the uninsured is passed on to the insured. Judge Vinson, a federal judge, not a healthcare economist or public policy specialist, goes on to question whether the government's is right that the healthcare market is unique.  He reaches for what seems to be far-fetched parade of horribles, for example the government might force us to buy broccoli, to raise doubts about the government's policy prescription.  He concludes by saying that the government's argument that the healthcare market is unique is not "factually convincing."  Let's pause here for one minute, though Judge Vinson is extremely learned and wrote a very thoughtful opinion, should he be the one deciding, on factual grounds, that the healthcare market is not unique?  Why is that policy decision not one made by the the policymakers?

There is more to say about this opinion, but I'll conclude this long post with one last thought. The proper role of the federal government is both a political question and a constitutional one.  Fundamentally, the question is when the constitutional judgment should defer to the political judgment.  Judge Vinson thinks this is a federalism problem.  I'm not sure where the federalism problem is.  If you don't like the fact that the federal government is telling you to buy healthcare insurance, throw the bums out.  Why isn't that the answer?

The Latest Conservative Turn on Gay Marriage

On today's Times we find out that Barbara Bush, daughter of President George W. Bush, will break ranks with her father and come out in in support of gay marriage.  My first reaction is one of astonishment.  This is not because Ms. Bush will in fact come out against her father on this issue, but because such an announcement is in fact worthy of news coverage.  In case any further proof was needed, this coverage would appear to confirm Kevin Phillips' assessment that our democratic experiment has taken a turn towards aristocracy. Why should anybody care what Ms. Bush thinks on anything?  Note that the article does not explain why her views on this particular issue should carry any special weight, nor does it feel that it has to.    Her name speaks for itself.

But then, if you keep reading, something very interesting crops up.

Barbara Bush is not only famous relative to come out in favor of gay marriage and against the public position of her father.  Meghan McCain, daughter of John McCain, also has come out in support of gay marriage, and so has Mary Cheney.  Laura Bush has also spoken out in support of the issue.

According to the Times, gay advocates point to these splits as proof that support for gay marriage is not a question of partisan affiliation or even family values.  That seems right.  But far more interesting to me is the fact that pseudo-public figures, such as relatives of former presidents, can speak out on sensitive issues in ways that their elected relatives cannot.  If political socialization begins in the home, and political identification tracks family lineage, gay rights advocates have a powerful point.  There is something about this issue that makes it different from others as a question of politics.  

This makes me wonder: what is it that makes this issue so important to the conservative political establishment and its base?  For the life of me, I cannot figure it out.

Another One Bites the Dust

Earlier today, a federal judge in Pensacola, Florida ruled that the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. From here on out, we can fill in the rest of the blanks without doing any research whatsoever. Yes, the judge was appointed by a Republican President -- the judge is on senior status, so it must be Reagan -- and no, it is not a coincidence that the suit ended up in Pensacola, Florida -- lots of conservative judges up there -- and yes, the judge ruled that the law exceeds Congress' commerce power. That about covers it.

The response from the Obama administration is not surprising. They don't like the opinion. But far more interesting is the notion that this ruling can actually affect the law going forward.  In the words of an administration official, for example, "You could have governors come out tomorrow and say my state will no longer enforce this law because this judge said the whole things is unconstitutional." But this was true before this judge ruled down in Pensacola, and it is not much different from a governor coming out next week and saying that they will support the law because two judges upheld it months before. This one ruling doesn't change anything. Curiously, the judge did refuse to enjoin the law while the parties appeal the decision, yet suggested that his declaratory judgment is "the functional equivalent of an injunction." Whatever that means.

Also quite interesting, if expected, is the reaction from Republican leaders. They praised the ruling.  Not a word about judicial overreaching, or about activist federal judges causing havoc with the work of our political branches. Not a word. I wonder what Senator Sessions thinks of this one. I can only imagine.

I have four questions.

Whether law school is a losing game is not the right question

Not a day goes by that a friend or acquaintance does not ask me about the Times piece a few weeks ago that posited whether law school is "a losing game."  This is because law graduates incur great debt to acquire their law degrees only to enter into an over-burdened market that will not provide adequate jobs for all.  At the center of this mess are the law schools, which massage their numbers in order to win (or not lose) the rankings game.  According to my colleague Bill Henderson, “Enron-type accounting standards have become the norm.” Things are so bad, he says, that “[e]very time I look at this data, I feel dirty.”

The examples can be quite disheartening.  Most troubling are the numbers that involve students and jobs.  What does it mean to be working right after graduation, for example, or nine months after?  Waiting tables counts, or stocking shelves at the local grocery store.  Worse yet are anecdotes of law schools hiring their own graduates for short periods of time in order to count them as "working," whether at graduation or nine months later.

Henderson calls this state of affairs an open secret, and he is certainly right about that.  My first reaction upon seeing the the Times piece was one of surprise tinged with incredulity.  I could not believe, that is, that people did not know about this.  How could they not?  Or put another way, how could law schools keep their actions secret for as long as they have?

Understanding What Drives the Modern University (hint: it is not academics)

For those who wonder when the decline of the American empire began in earnest, look no further than this Sunday's sports edition of the New York Times.  In its front page, you will find a story about a school in Texas spending $60 million dollars to built what the Times labels a "palace," also commonly known as a football stadium.  In these difficult economic times, this community put the question to a vote, whether to pass a $119 million bond to finance the project as well as a few other projects, and it passed by a resounding 63% of the vote.  

I cannot speak about other states, but in my home state of Indiana, communities went to the voters this past election to ask for money to finance basic school needs, and were largely rebuffed.  It is all about priorities, I say.