From: "Robert G Lewis" 

Personally I didn't think the article was that bad towards religion.  I
didn't consider the religious reference at the start of the article to be
inflammatory but more matter of fact.  And the article did point out that
the University is improving its academics.

    Even a prominent critic of the school's mission of integrating the Bible
with public policy vouches for Regent's improvements. Barry Lynn , the head
of the     liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and State,
said Regent is churning out an increasingly well-trained legal army for the
conservative         Christian movement.

    "You can't underestimate the quality of a lot of the people that are
there," said Lynn, who has guest-lectured at Regent and debated
professors on its             campus.

Strikes me as a positive statement about Regents.

The article has more specifics and less inflammatory than the rest of your
message Gary .


"Gary Britt"  wrote in
message news:464bc7c6{at}w3.nls.net...
> There were many more anti-religious and anti-Christian statements in the
> piece than just that one example, its just your own prejudices that keep
> you from seeing that.
>
> Pulitzer prizes in political reporting are meaningless crap.   Its like
> saying Michael Moore won an award.  Doesn't make his lies and deceptions
> any less lies and deceptions.  These awards aren't about quality, they are
> about rewarding a specific point of view.  Jason Blair won a Pulitzer for
> all I know or care.
>
> Gary
>
> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>> It also has to do with how hiring standards changed in justice as  civil
>> rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the
>> applicant became less of a factor over a more conservative ( perhaps even
>> religious ) zeal.
>>
>> FWIW I can understand a portion of your objections as I felt the law
>> school prayer in a religious university was superfluous to the gist of
>> the story.
>>
>> The reporter recently erred his way to a Pulitzer prize reporting on the
>> Bush signing statement revelations
>>
>> http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070417/NEWS/704170423/1
052
>> Gary Britt wrote:
>>> That's far from all they wrote Rich you no better than that.  The very
>>> first thing they wrote was a snide bigoted comment about a private
>>> religious law school class saying a brief prayer.  That's got nothing to
>>> do with anything except anti-religious, anti-Christian bigotry.  The
>>> article had a couple of facts, many factual errors and a ton of bigotry.
>>> Not worth the read.
>>>
>>> Gary
>>>
>>> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>>>> So to report the grant of preferences to a lowest rank tier 4 school
>>>> smacks of religious bigotry? If you read the article in
it's entirety
>>>> it did mention that Regent has improved it's standards since 1999 (
>>>> Gooding's class ) where 60 % failed the bar exam ( 71% now pass ) .
>>>>
>>>> I agree that not all those that graduate from a 'prestigious'
>>>> university are the best and the brightest - George W Bush
comes to mind
>>>>
>>>> "Gary Britt"
 wrote in message
>>>> news:464b7251$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>>>> There are so many anti-religious, anti-Christian
bigoted statements
>>>>> and attempted slurs in this article that it is not
possible to any
>>>>> part of it seriously, unless one's own bigotry
predisposes them to
>>>>> agree with the slurs and bigotry contained in the article.
>>>>>
>>>>> 1.  First it starts out by attempting to say by implication that
>>>>> prayer in a religious private law school means
something bad about the
>>>>> students in that school.  Time to stop reading really
right there.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2.  It states Monica Goodling worked at DOJ when that
is false.  She
>>>>> worked at the WHITEHOUSE and was liaison from the
whitehouse to DOJ.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3.  It states as though it were fact that if you don't have
>>>>> prosecutorial experience you can't have anything to do
with evaluating
>>>>> statistics that measure performance criteria and
aren't qualified to
>>>>> evaluate whether a person is following policy
directives set by the
>>>>> head of the executive branch.  Then it goes on to
imply that graduates
>>>>> from a different school that doesn't pray but have
absolutely no more
>>>>> prosecutorial experience are qualified to do these things.
>>>>>
>>>>> 4.  It states by implication that a person from Harvard is more
>>>>> qualified for government work than a person from
another University,
>>>>> and argues we should let the Harvard/Yale sycophants
hire only other
>>>>> socio-economic bigots and religion hating atheists
from the same in
>>>>> bred left wing academies from which they were spawned.
>>>>>
>>>>> 5.  Similar articles have appeared recently
complaining that somebody
>>>>> who was a member of the conservative federalist
society was hired and
>>>>> he didn't come from Harvard but came from the
University of Kentucky.
>>>>> Oh my god!  The horrors.  I hope he didn't once hang
up on somebody
>>>>> without saying good bye like John Bolton.  Then there
was another
>>>>> recent complaint about somebody who was hired from a
school other than
>>>>> Harvard or Yale who actually kept a bust of James
Madison (author of
>>>>> many of the federalist papers) in his office instead
of the mandatory
>>>>> Karl Marx bust.  Ok I made up the Karl Marx part, but
they really
>>>>> complained the guy wasn't qualified because he thought
highly of James
>>>>> Madison (Madison is of course a favorite of the
federalist society
>>>>> lawyers and that alone is a disqualification to DOJ
service to the
>>>>> likes of the bigots like the author of this useless
crap you linked to
>>>>> and quoted from.
>>>>>
>>>>> 6. God forbid the DOJ should have people in it that
wouldn't give a
>>>>> cover-up sweetheart deal to Sandy Berger and then not
even enforce the
>>>>> terms of that sweetheart deal by not requiring him to take a lie
>>>>> detector test that he agreed to take to detail what he
stole, what he
>>>>> destroyed, and what information was in the materials
he stole and
>>>>> destroyed that have been permanently kept from the
9/11 commission and
>>>>> the American people. Yes it was those kinds of career
civil servants
>>>>> in the DOJ that should determine who is hired at DOJ.
>>>>>
>>>>> The DOJ and much of the shadow government known as the federal
>>>>> bureaucracy needs are sharp kick in the ass out the
door.  I think
>>>>> everyone under Gonzales and above Janitor at DOJ should be fired
>>>>> immediately.  The place wreaks from decades of
inbreeding and incest
>>>>> of type this moron you cite argues should be the norm
in perpetuity.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gary
>>>>>
>>>>> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>>>>>> From Oral Roberts University?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_
puts_spotlight_on_christian_law_school/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The title of the course was
Constitutional
>>>>>> Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks
were opened, a
>>>>>> student led his classmates in a 10-minute
devotional talk, completed
>>>>>> with "amens," about the need to preserve
their Christian values.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Sin is so appealing because it's easy and
because it's fun," the law
>>>>>> student warned.
>>>>>> Regent University School of Law, founded by
televangelist Pat
>>>>>> Robertson to provide "Christian leadership to
change the world," has
>>>>>> worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade
its reputation,
>>>>>> fighting past years when a majority of its
graduates couldn't pass
>>>>>> the bar exam and leading up to recent victories
over Ivy League teams
>>>>>> in national law student competitions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But even in its darker days, Regent has had no
better friend than the
>>>>>> Bush administration. Graduates of the law school
have been among the
>>>>>> most influential of the more than 150 Regent
University alumni hired
>>>>>> to federal government positions since President
Bush took office in
>>>>>> 2001, according to a university website.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the
former top aide to
>>>>>> Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the
center of the storm
>>>>>> over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who
resigned on Friday,
>>>>>> has become the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh
>>>>>> spotlight to the administration's hiring of
officials educated at
>>>>>> smaller, conservative schools with sometimes
marginal academic
>>>>>> reputations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her
Fifth Amendment
>>>>>> right against self-incrimination to avoid
testifying before Congress,
>>>>>> was one of a handful of officials overseeing the
firings. She helped
>>>>>> install Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and
her former boss at
>>>>>> the Republican National Committee, as a
replacement US attorney in
>>>>>> Arkansas.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant
>>>>>> prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the
>>>>>> performance of US attorneys have come under fire.
Senator Sheldon
>>>>>> Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a
hearing: "Should we
>>>>>> be concerned with the experience level of the
people who are making
>>>>>> these highly significant decisions?"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And across the political blogosphere, critics have
held up Goodling,
>>>>>> who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example
of the Bush
>>>>>> administration subordinating ability to politics
in hiring decisions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were
generally reserved for
>>>>>> the best of the legal profession," wrote a
contributor to The New
>>>>>> Republic website . ". . . That a recent
graduate of one of the very
>>>>>> worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually
no relevant
>>>>>> experience could ascend to this position is a sure
sign that there is
>>>>>> something seriously wrong at the DOJ."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts
>>>>>> University shut down its ailing law school and
sent its library to
>>>>>> Robertson's Bible-based college in Virginia. It
was initially called
>>>>>> "CBN University School of Law" after the
televangelist's Christian
>>>>>> Broadcasting Network, whose studios share the
campus and which
>>>>>> provided much of the funding for the law school. (The Coors
>>>>>> Foundation is also a donor to the university.) The
American Bar
>>>>>> Association accredited Regent 's law school in 1996.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not long ago, it was rare for Regent graduates to
join the federal
>>>>>> government. But in 2001, the Bush administration
picked the dean of
>>>>>> Regent's government school, Kay Coles James , to
be the director of
>>>>>> the Office of Personnel Management -- essentially
the head of human
>>>>>> resources for the executive branch. The doors of
opportunity for
>>>>>> government jobs were thrown open to Regent alumni.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "We've had great placement," said Jay
Sekulow , who heads a non
>>>>>> profit law firm based at Regent that files
lawsuits aimed at lowering
>>>>>> barriers between church and state. "We've had
a lot of people in key
>>>>>> positions."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Many of those who have Regent law degrees,
including Goodling, joined
>>>>>> the Department of Justice. Their path to
employment was further eased
>>>>>> in late 2002, when John Ashcroft , then attorney
general, changed
>>>>>> longstanding rules for hiring lawyers to fill
vacancies in the career
>>>>>> ranks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and
>>>>>> recommended whom to hire, usually picking top
students from elite
>>>>>> schools.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004
graduate described
>>>>>> being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at
the Justice
>>>>>> Department's Civil Rights Division in October
2003. Asked to name the
>>>>>> Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with
which he most
>>>>>> disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling
striking down a law
>>>>>> against sodomy because it violated gay people's
civil rights.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "When one of the interviewers agreed and said
that decision in
>>>>>> Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly
answered the question,"
>>>>>> wrote the Regent graduate . The administration
hired him for the
>>>>>> Civil Rights Division's housing section -- the
only employment offer
>>>>>> he received after graduation, he said.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The graduate from Regent -- which is ranked a
"tier four" school by
>>>>>> US News & World Report, the lowest score and
essentially a tie for
>>>>>> 136th place --  was not the only lawyer with
modest credentials to be
>>>>>> hired by the Civil Rights Division after the
administration imposed
>>>>>> greater political control over career hiring.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The changes resulted in a sometimes dramatic
alteration to the
>>>>>> profile of new hires beginning in 2003, as the
Globe reported last
>>>>>> year after obtaining resumes from 2001-2006 to
three sections in the
>>>>>> civil rights division. Conservative credentials
rose, while prior
>>>>>> experience in civil rights law and the average
ranking of the law
>>>>>> school attended by the applicant dropped.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As the dean of a lower-ranked law school that
benefited from the Bush
>>>>>> administration's hiring practices, Jeffrey Brauch
of Regent made no
>>>>>> apologies in a recent interview for training
students to understand
>>>>>> what the law is today, and also to understand how
legal rules should
>>>>>> be changed to better reflect "eternal
principles of justice," from
>>>>>> divorce laws to abortion rights
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We anticipate that many of our graduates are going
to go and be
>>>>>> change agents in society," Brauch said.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Still, Brauch said, the recent criticism of the
law school triggered
>>>>>> by Goodling's involvement in the US attorney
firings has missed the
>>>>>> mark in one respect: the quality of the lawyers
now being turned out
>>>>>> by the school, he argued, is far better than its image.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Seven years ago, 60 percent of the class of 1999
-- Goodling's
>>>>>> class --  failed the bar exam on the first
attempt. (Goodling's
>>>>>> performance was not available, though she is
admitted to the bar in
>>>>>> Virginia.) The dismal numbers prompted the school
to overhaul its
>>>>>> curriculum and tighten admissions standards.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It has also spent more heavily to recruit
better-qualified law
>>>>>> students. This year, it will spend $2.8 million on
scholarships, a
>>>>>> million more than what it was spending four years ago.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The makeover is working. The bar exam passage rate
of Regent alumni ,
>>>>>> according to the Princeton Review, rose to 67
percent last year.
>>>>>> Brauch said it is now up to 71 percent, and that
half of the students
>>>>>> admitted in the late 1990s would not be accepted
today. The school
>>>>>> has also recently won moot-court and negotiation
competitions,
>>>>>> beating out teams from top-ranked law schools.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Adding to Regent's prominence, its course on
"Human Rights, Civil
>>>>>> Liberties, and National Security" is co
taught by one of its newest
>>>>>> professors: Ashcroft.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Even a prominent critic of the school's mission of
integrating the
>>>>>> Bible with public policy vouches for Regent's
improvements. Barry
>>>>>> Lynn , the head of the liberal Americans United
for the Separation of
>>>>>> Church and State, said Regent is churning out an
increasingly
>>>>>> well-trained legal army for the conservative
Christian movement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "You can't underestimate the quality of a lot
of the people that are
>>>>>> there," said Lynn, who has guest-lectured at
Regent and debated
>>>>>> professors on its campus.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In light of Regent's rapid evolution, some current
law students say
>>>>>> it is frustrating to be judged in light of Regent
alumni from the
>>>>>> school's more troubled era -- including Goodling.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One third-year student, Chamie Riley , said she
rejected the idea
>>>>>> that any government official who invokes her Fifth
Amendment right
>>>>>> against self-incrimination could be a good
representative of Regent.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As Christians, she said, Regent students know
"you should be morally
>>>>>> upright. You should not be in a situation where
you have to plead the
>>>>>> Fifth."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>

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