Higher Ed Law Prof Blog

Can You Hear the Echoe of Vonnegut's Player Piano?

The late Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, "Player Piano," published in 1952, postulates a mechanized, automated world in which everyone with a real job holds a doctorate. Even the local travel agent holds a doctorate in "recreational science" or some such nonsense. The rest of America's workforce holds busy-work jobs on road crews and the like. In his Forward, the author comments, "This is not a book about what is, but a book about what could be."
Is Vonnegut's future-world finally on the horizon? With not only manufacturing, but even some sophisticated service, jobs moving increasingly off-shore (e,g,, legal research and tax preparation to India), it's no wonder more Americans feel the need for ever-more-impressive college credentials. In the June 22, 2007, Chronicle of Higher Education, writer Burton Bollag explores the phenomenon of "Credential Creep." chronicle of higher ed
Bollag quotes Chancellor John D. Wiley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison: "For the last 15 or 20 years, we've been under pressure to take what is basically a master's degree and call it a doctorate."
As Gilbert & Sullivan so sagely said, "When everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody."

Duke Case DA Disbarred

Yesterdaym DA MIchael Nifong was disbarred by a North Carolina ethics panel. Nifong came under severe fire following his decision to drop charges against the three Duke University lacrosse players accused of raping an exotic dancer. Nifong disbarred.