Earlier (2020) Sailer: Biden Passed Tough Delaware Bar Exam on His First Try (I Think)
Joe Biden has a comically high opinion of his own IQ.
But one thing you can say in his defense is that he passed the traditionally tough Delaware bar exam on his first try. Being a Delaware Big Law corporate lawyer (e.g., drafting contracts for Fortune 500 firms) is one of the better lifestyle choices in elite American life because you get paid like your midtown Manhattan peer, but your mortgage on your posh suburban house is far less. Granted, Joe didn’t get hired to practice Big Law, but instead went into local mundane lawyering. But still, he passed the notoriously rigorous Delaware bar exam.
From Fox News:
US Published March 2, 2023 5:00am EST
By Jon Brown | Fox News
The Delaware Supreme Court lowered the passing score on the state’s bar exam amid other changes reportedly intended to increase racial diversity among the state’s lawyers.
The 200-question multiple-choice exam will be offered twice instead of once a year beginning in 2024—and its passing score will be lowered from 145 to 143, according to local outlet WHYY.
The number of essays on the exam will be decreased from eight to four, and the number of essay topics will be reduced from 14 to 10.
The clerkship requirement is also being lowered from 21 weeks to 12 weeks, and the mandatory list of 25 legal proceedings that potential lawyers must attend has been shortened to 18 out of 30 possible items. …
Seitz, who began the diversity project that led to a report that suggested changes to the exam, maintained that such revisions will enhance competitiveness in attracting legal talent to the state that serves as a hub of business litigation, according to Reuters.
I’m guessing that this is in response to big clients like Walmart demanding that its outside counsel firms employ more black lawyers. Delaware firms are harder pressed to meet these quotas due to blacks having a harder time passing the Delaware exam.
…Chuck Durante, who serves as president of the Delaware State Bar Association, praised the changes, according to WHYY. …
Durante further noted that “attitudes must continue to evolve in Delaware,” according to the outlet.
“White people generally who have their antennae up, who understand what is happening in society, have learned the meaning of microaggression. They’ve learned the meaning of how to be welcoming, how to be professional, how to make this community better suited for diversity in its professional class, including its lawyers,” he said.
From Higher Ed Dive:
Columbia University becomes first Ivy League institution to go permanently test-optional
Published March 2, 2023
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Senior ReporterColumbia University will no longer require applicants to send SAT or ACT scores for undergraduate admissions, making it the first Ivy League institution to adopt test-optional policies indefinitely.
The university said in a message posted Wednesday that it crafted its application to allow flexibility “for students to represent themselves fully and showcase their academic talents,” but that entrance exams are not mandated. Columbia dropped its testing requirement in 2020 and continually extended that waiver.
Besides making it easier to let in more blacks without lowering your reported average test score, this also helps well-connected whites compete with the Asian onslaught of rising test scores. Personally, I’d like to see some in-depth studies the 21st century phenomenon of Asians acing the SAT—is this for real or is from cracking the code? Can anything be done about it?
But the whole topic seems so laden with minefields of crimethink that, as far as I can tell from what gets published, almost nobody is even thinking about it out loud. No doubt there are high level discussions going on within Ivy League colleges like Columbia, but the media almost never gives us a hint of what is being said behind closed doors.
Why would you be interested in that?
