What You Don’t Know Can Help Us

A California law school recently suffered a setback in a First Amendment battle in a California based federal trial court. The Southern California Institute of Law challenged a requirement that law schools accredited in California post the passage rates for graduates who took the 10 most recent exams, or post a link to those passage rates. 

According to SCIL, this rule violated its First Amendment rights because it constitutes “forced speech.” SCIL disagrees with the “ideological belief that a law school should be judged by the passage rate of its graduates.” Interesting viewpoint.  Does SCIL also believe that a baseball team should not be judged by its location in the standings? This would be welcome news to Cubs fans everywhere. But I digress.

SCIL argues that by forcing it to post the passage rates, the state is requiring it to buy into the crazy notion that law school graduates should, you know, pass the bar exam. Judge James Selna (gonna go out on a limb here and assume he is not a SCIL graduate) wrote this great passage. Of course, I can’t help but wonder if SCIL’s lawsuit is motivated by the fact that none of its 43 graduates who took the 2012 California Bar exam passed. That couldn’t be the reason, could it?