Thoughts of higher ed law so far...

First of all, though I am incredibly busy at work, I have reason to believe that I manage my time better when taking more than one class. With this one course, I feel like I have all the time in the world – though in reality, I don’t. I guess the pressure of knowing I had a ton of reading to do really just got me fired up. Now I’ve got a case of the “oh, I’ve just got to read a couple cases and read a chapter in the text…I don’t have to do that right now…..”

Class is entirely amusing, and though I love this course and enjoyed my philosophy of law course as an undergraduate, I’m glad I’m where I am and decided not to pursue law. It’s just not my thing. Cases can be amusing, but the legal jargon frustrates me. Not to mention that I just love social theory too much. I’m more interested in the sociological ramifications of law than law itself. Darn you, Supreme Court and your ruling against restricting campaign spending by corporations!!! (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). SO peeved about this. Makes me think that maybe the world WILL end in 2012........

I love that our class is co-taught by a lawyer…you feel like you’re really getting some solid info. He’s not trying to kill us like we’re in law school, but he’s really getting us to think about cases. It’s so amusing to learn about the way decisions are rendered and finding that sometimes, their disagreements (or agreements) have nothing to do with the core issue of the case, but the way it is presented…or some other small and seemingly irrelevant thing.

Right now we’re in the middle of the whole public vs. private thing and learning about cases where there is argument about whether a person at a private institution or a private institution itself is acting "in the color of the state"– very amusing. Makes me think back when I worked at Brown Med School. They're a private institution, but had the only medical school in the state of RI…at one point, they were accepting state funds but had to agree to allow students from RI to attend Brown med. Then, they cut financial ties with the state to have full run of the med school admissions process.