Breathtaking academic rot

I have been in academic life long enough to have seen the little nudges. The athlete whose grade suddenly shows up as a C instead of a D. The little nudges about why influential A thinks his friend B should get the admissions nod. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I am deeply suspicious about academic corruption: political, personal, ideological, intellectual. The University of Illinois scandal has, I admit, floored me. John Kass of the Chicago Tribune explains.

In exchange for corrupting his law school’s admissions policy, Herman wanted to get jobs for five of his law school graduates. University officials considered the law grads so far at bottom of their class that they needed political clout to get a decent salary at a good law firm. If that wasn’t possible, the U. of I. was willing to place them in government jobs.

“Yeah, I’m betting the Governorship will be open,” Heidi M. Hurd, then dean of the university’s College of Law, wrote in an e-mail to Herman on April 29, 2006, perhaps joking that Blagojevich’s time in public life was coming to an end.

What followed in her e-mail was worse.

“Other jobs in Government are fine, since kids who don’t pass the bar and can’t think are close enough for government work,” Hurd wrote. In another e-mail to other U. of I. officials, Hurd wrote:

“FYI: The deal is supposed to be that WE get to pick the students — and they are supposed to be bottom-of-the-class students who face a hell of a time passing the Bar and otherwise getting jobs!”

Hurd’s webpage at the University of Illinois’ law school says she teaches ethics, and says this about her:
Under her Deanship, the College of Law significantly increased incoming student credentials to place them among the nation’s Top 15 based on LSAT scores and median GPA . . .
Simply breathtaking.