U. of I. jobs-for-entry scheme

[sabra]

Source: Chicago Trib

E-mails reveal law school put a price on admission of unqualified candidate

What does it cost to get an unqualified student into the University of Illinois law school?

Five jobs for graduating law students, suggest internal e-mails released Thursday.

The documents show for the first time efforts to seek favors -- in this case, jobs -- for admissions, the most troubling evidence yet of how Illinois' entrenched system of patronage crept into the state's most prestigious public university.

They also detail the law school's system for handling "Special Admits," students backed by the politically connected, expanding the scope of a scandal prompted by a Chicago Tribune investigation.

In one e-mail exchange, University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman forced the law school to admit an unqualified applicant backed by then- Gov. Rod Blagojevich while seeking a promise from the governor's go-between that five law school graduates would get jobs. The applicant, a relative of deep-pocketed Blagojevich campaign donor Kerry Peck, appears to have been pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley, who often carried the governor's admissions requests.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ui-trustees-26-jun26,0,3541380.story

[Tansy_Gold]

1. This has been an open secret on that campus

since AT LEAST 1966 when I was there.

[tj2001]

2. I bet the chancellor also ORDERED the professors to graduate those dolts

after they were admitted.

So how many unqualified lawyers did the University of Illinois graduate?

[izquierdista]

3. Less than Regent U.

ALL of theirs are unqualified.

[Sanity Claws]

4. If they are truly unqualified, they won't pass the bar

My guess is that they were admitted over more qualified students. Affirmative action for the politically connected.

[mopinko]

5. find me a school where this DOESN'T happen

find me a school where the senator's kid doesn't et accepted, where generous alumni aren't always rewarded with a spot for a kid who isn't really that bright.

[wolfgangmo]

6. Bush springs to mind.

[AwakeAtLast]

7. Exactly what I was thinking

I don't know why U of I is being singled out. :shrug:

[mopinko]

8. because the tribune acts like a reputable journalist when we are talking dems

not so much when we are talking thugs of any sort. like endorsing george ryan for his last term even after the details of the licenses for bribes were well known, and the pictures of the burning willis family van were on their front page.
selective journalism is their specialty, always has been and apparently always will be.

[Wapsie B]

9. Exactly.

And I'm not naive enough to think this sort of thing doesn't go on at the other U of I in the conference.

[mule_train]

10. those students were well qualified to be lawyers

after all, they know how to make a payoff, dont they?