From: "Rich Gauszka" 

From Oral Roberts University?

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_puts_sp
otlight_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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