Having just been approved to write for this blog, I wanted to take this opportunity to write some earth-shattering post that would shake the very foundation of modern Leftism - you know something that would bring about the complete demise of the Democratic Party and issue in a new dispensation of political thought complete with personal responsibility, classical liberalism, and pretty pictures.

However, as I was preparing the above mentioned revelation, my roommate sidetracked me by saying one of the most brilliant things I have heard since arriving on campus.

"I'm not reading this to retain it. I'm reading this to say I readed it!"

. . . And, just like that, my thesis vanished.

So instead, I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is James Heilpern and I am a freshman here at Chapel Hill. I would like to say that I have a major all picked out, but lying is a sin, so instead I will simply say I am going into "exploratory studies." I enjoy long walks on the beach, (virgin) pinacaladas, and and just today I got caught in the rain.

On Monday Elizabeth Freeman, a former member of student congress, strongly criticized James Allred and Luke Farley. You can read the column here.

"The two polar opposites do have one commonality - Power," she writes. "That could, in the upcoming year, place the student body's well-being towards the bottom of Allred's and Farley's political agendas."

The following day, Luke and Dustin Ingalls tried to put concerns about student congress to rest. You read their letter here.

But it was Kris Wampler's response today that really destroyed the credibility of Freeman's accusatory column. You can read it here. Here's an excerpt:

Former Rep. Elizabeth Freeman, with whom I served on Student Congress, is critical of campus leaders for failing to work harder for the student body.

Yet, in all my time in Congress, I never witnessed Ms. Freeman to be a particularly active member of that body. In fact, in her resignation letter from earlier this year, Freeman stated, "I apologize for my irresponsible lack of attendance lately at student congress meetings, committee meetings, and general events." Her resignation came just before Annual Budget - the time of year when Student Congress allocates hundreds of thousands of dollars in fee money for the coming year.

Considering Mr. Freeman's "concern" for the manner in which such money is doled out, it seems odd that she cut and run just before the most significant allocation of funding all year.

Meanwhile, real leaders like Luke Farley are working hard, every day, for students.

I would like to say, "You got served Ms. Freeman," but that's not really part of Carolina Review parlance. However, I will say that when Kris gets too busy at law school to pay attention to UNC politics, I will miss his brand of candor.

Bowles has taken a wait-and-see approach to Wesleyan College's effort to join the UNC system. Read about it here.

That is good news for the rational.

While there are several issues to consider within this proposal, this is the most important:

N.C. Wesleyan has had a history of financial problems. While school leaders say things are fine now, UNC would want to verify that and decide whether financial problems will always be with that campus or whether those problems would abate with UNC management.

It seems that everyone is in agreement that Wesleyan should not join the system if it is not financially viable. However, there is something that has been missed here. If Wesleyan is free of financial problems, it still shouldn't be allowed to join the system. Why grow the size of government and make taxpayers pay for something that could operate without tax dollars. Private colleges give a state the same economic and social benefits (of course the benefits of universities in general are often exaggerated) as public colleges, and they are kinder to taxpayers.

So, regardless of Wesleyan's financial situation, they should not join the UNC system.

Faculty from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC-Greensboro and the University of California at Los Angeles have received a $540,000 grant from the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) to continue their study of whether racial diversity in U.S. law schools results in educational benefits.

As highlighted by The Educational Diversity Project at UNC-Chapel Hill, which is conducting the study, “controversy exists as to whether racial diversity offers measurable educational benefits in the law school setting and in the increasingly diverse workforce and society beyond law school.” So it is important to discover the true effect of affirmative action policies. However, the timing and the background of the study’s authors suggest that LSAC may have commissioned the study more to produce support for the belief that affirmative action is just and beneficial than to answer a perplexing question -- is affirmative action really beneficial?

Law professor Charles E. Daye and psychology professor Abigail T. Panter of UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Walter R Allen, professor of sociology and education at UCLA, and Dr. Linda F. Wightman, emeritus professor of educational research at UNC-Greensboro have already completed the first facet of the study, which involves following 8,500 students who entered about 70 law schools in the fall of 2004 and tracking their progress. The grant was awarded by LSAC under its empirical research program, which awards grants for research about law schools, law students and legal education. The council has awarded more than $1 million to the project's comprehensive research study since 2004.

Charles Daye, former LSAC President, participated in the preparation of and co-signed the Amicus Brief that the University of North Carolina School of Law submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan School of Law in the Grutter case. Furthermore, one of his professional interests is “assuring access to the legal profession by members of under-represented minority groups.” Dr. Linda F. Wightman, former Vice-President of Operations, Testing, and Research at LSAC, has done extensive educational research. One of her studies, entitled “Are Other Things Essentially Equal? An Empirical Investigation of the Consequences of Including Race as a Factor in Law School Admission” and featured on LSAC’s web site, concludes that “the data provide compelling evidence disputing the claim that including race as a factor in law school admission decisions resulted either in admitting students unqualified for the academic rigor of a legal education or in undermining the academic standards of participating institutions.” She came to this conclusion by avoiding “the misleading conclusions that can result from simple comparisons of total group performance, either on admission credentials or law school performance.”

In addition to being strongly in favor of affirmative action, the researchers of the Educational Diversity Project claim that the study’s methods will “provide further nuance, depth, and richness” to the study. The word “nuance” suggests that the study may use whatever means necessary to paint a favorable picture of affirmative action. As Dr. Wightman has asserted before, evaluating “total group performance” can yield “misleading conclusions.”

This grant comes shortly after Richard Sander, a law professor at UCLA, wrote his study, “The Racial Paradox of Corporate Law Firms,” which will be in the next issue of the North Carolina Law Review. Sander concludes in his study that racial preferences in law firm hiring may actually hurt minority lawyers.
Sander is also the author of “A Systemic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools” in 2004. This report concluded that affirmative action in law school admissions hurts minorities. By placing minority students in more elite schools than they would attend if academics were the only consideration, affirmative action has caused some of the disparity between minority and white law school dropout rates and bar passage rates. Sander suggests that without affirmative action, there might in fact be more minority lawyers. This study caused much controversy and led to the publication of many counter studies from what Sander calls “the affirmative action establishment.”

While it is important to assess the effect affirmative action has on student performance and educational experience in law school, such an assessment is only valuable if it is unbiased and truthful. LSAC, as an administrative organization, should be pursuing truth rather than any specific agenda. Unfortunately, commissioning a study to professors with a strong bias is a step in the wrong direction. It seems possible that this study’s consideration of “nuance” and educational experience may suggest that it is being conducted to rebut studies, such as Sander’s, that call into question the benefits of “affirmative action.” A study undertaken by researchers who have not previously staked out a position would inspire more confidence.

Read about it here.

That's what I'm talking about. Let's get rid of some administrators. As Insider Higher Ed reports, we have way too many as it is.

[In the last ten years] Total growth in faculty jobs over the decade was 26.4 percent. But that rate of increase was outpaced by several other categories of higher education employees: There was a 28.1 percent rise in executive and managerial jobs. Why do we need more administrators than teachers?

Our very own Taylor Stanford was quoted in the Washington Times's coverage of the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference.

Read the story here.

The National Conservative Student Conference offers a chance to "hear a different point of view than on campus," said Taylor Stanford, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.