UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Washington, DC 20585

In the Matter of:

The Petition for Renewal of Recognition
by the ABA Section of Legal
Education and Admissions to the Bar 
to Accredit Law Schools

National Advisory Committee on 
Institutional Quality and Integrity
meeting December 4-6, 2006
Federal Reg Notice Vol 71 No. 165
August 25, 2006 – Page 50404, 2nd column
Item 2, American Bar Association

SCOTT AND JEFOUND REQUEST TO MAKE AN ORAL PRESENTATION IN SUPPORT OF THEIR OPPOSITION TO RENEWAL OF THE ABA RIGHT TO ACCREDIT LAW SCHOOLS 

1. Presenter

William Sumner Scott, J.D. (“Scott”) P. O. Box 380341, Miami, FL 33238, wss@jefound.org, presents the following request:        

2. Organization Represented

Scott represents himself and Judicial Equality Found, Inc., a 501(c)(3) qualified, Florida non-profit corporation, dedicated to the use of the judicial system to maintain civilized order.  See http://jefound.org for statements of its history, purpose and other activities.   

3. A.  Introduction, Jurisdiction and Relief Requested

The American Bar Association (the “ABA”) is operated to provide benefits to its members.  This primary duty is in direct conflict with the law schools’ duty to educate law students to make critical examinations that could lead to administration of justice reforms that could be detrimental to ABA members.  In spite of this obvious deficiency, the Federal, 50 state and the Territories’ judicial branches (the “Judicial Branches”) have delegated the accreditation of law schools to the ABA.  

The primary reason for this delegation is that law school accreditation by the ABA costs less to provide than if each Judicial Branch did the work.  In addition, the ABA justifies its methods by the assertion on its website that without its accreditation system, legal education would become fragmented and inconsistent.  As explained in our Opposition and this presentation, these benefits are achieved at the sacrifice of a judicial system that serves the public needs.   

Through the accreditation process, the ABA prescribes law school admission criteria and the courses taught.  The ABA also has influence over the lawyer professional license exam (the “Bar Exam”) questions.  By these points of contact, the ABA has total control of the Judicial Branches’ quality of legal education.  There has been little or no objection to this control by the legal profession because of the ABA’s power to recommend judicial candidates and the vested interest of all lawyers in a high hourly rate for their services.    

The Higher Education Act of 1985, 79 Stat. 1212, as amended, 20 U.S. C. A. § 1070, granted the Department of Education the right to determine who will accredit law schools.  Our Opposition urges this Committee to recommend to the Secretary that she exercise that right to deny the ABA renewal application to accredit law schools and that she further conduct hearings how to best accomplish that task for the benefit of the public.   

B.  ABA Imposed Anti-competitive Conditions

The ABA has imposed artificial barriers to restrict entry to the legal education business.  Law schools are required to own their buildings, employ a specified percentage of full time faculty, and have an expansive law library.  Building ownership is totally irrelevant to the quality of education.  Often, part-time faculty members know the subject better because they practice the area of the law taught.  Law schools must be free to employ the best instructors available without regard to how many hours they teach.  The ABA limits the number of hours a student may work.  The number of hours of outside employment by law students is also irrelevant.  Many student employment opportunities provide training that benefits the study of law, such as bank trust officers, law enforcement officers, social workers, teachers, paralegals, and court reporters.  Work outside the classroom exposes students to the public they will serve and permits students from low net worth situations to attend law school.    

The ABA has caused its approved law schools to adopt the Law School Admission Test (the “LSAT”).  The LSAT tests the ability to read and intelligence, but little else.  The results are published as an average test score of the incoming freshman law class for each school.  This publication creates the impression that the students in the high average score law schools are the best educated.  There is no proven merit to this ABA condoned belief.   

The Judicial Branches have agreed that the graduates from ABA-accredited law schools are qualified to take the license test while law graduates from out-of-state, non-ABA-accredited law schools either are denied admission or face additional hurdles to take the test.   

The Bar exams are under the supervision of the Judicial Branches.  The Judicial Branches have permitted the ABA to provide questions.  The questions cover 10 or more law subjects.  No exemption to take a specialized Bar exam with less than all subjects is granted.  The knowledge of those who intend to limit their practice to a particular field of law is not tested to sufficient depth.  Undergraduate law courses in particular specialties must be tested before they are granted the right to serve the public.  Specific undergraduate courses in judgeship with internships to identify those who are qualified must be developed.  Under the present system, the knowledge level for the law school graduate is too superficial to provide public service.  Yet, they are permitted to immediately take the Bar exam and, upon achieving a passing score, they are granted the unlimited right to practice law in any field they chose.    

C.  Crises Conditions Exist

Law schools under ABA supervision are prevented from the exercise of the creativity necessary to keep Americans safe from harm.  Specifically: 

(1)  The Judicial Branches have interpreted their authorization documents to force them to wait for problems to come to them rather than affirmatively search for opportunities to provide justice.  They are slavishly attached to the past, including their past mistakes.  This mindset prevented the elimination of slavery for 74 years and women from voting for 122 years.  It is also why religious violence[1] and injustice to Native Americans continues.[2]  The ABA imposed Bar Exams stifle law school study of how to use the judicial system to search for justice.

(2)  To respond to public needs requires in-depth knowledge of related subject matter prior to admission to law school classes.  The ABA, through its control of Bar exams forces all law students to take the same law school courses.  This is a waste of law school and student time.  Different legal specialties require different training.  And, law schools should respond to provide that specialized training.  As examples:

  (i)  Require law schools to establish undergraduate pre-law courses as a condition precedent to the admission to law school classes.  Law students admitted to: (A) constitutional law classes must have taken undergraduate history; (B) corporations classes must be limited to students who have taken finance or accounting; and, (C) domestic relations students must have taken psychology.  Course prerequisites will force the law professor to take the law school course to an achievement level one would expect of a professional education; and
 
  (ii) Prescribe courses in religious history, content of holy books, and comparative religion.  

(3)  Students must be required to declare their intent to go to law school in undergrad and to take courses that are specific to the area of the law they elect to study.  This will identify students who can plan ahead and have a genuine desire to be lawyers.  Once the undergraduate declares his or her intention to go to law school, the undergraduate school will have an incentive to focus on the quality of education provided and the performance of the declared pre-law student to be certain the undergraduate school’s reputation is preserved with law school admission departments. 

(4)  The legal system refuses to study and solve the problems of the underclass.  Rather, it reduces crime by the imposition of the highest incarceration rate of the 205 independent countries of the world.[3]  In 1981, 0.9% of the United States population was in prison.  In 1992, it was 1.9% of the population.  In 2003, it was 2.4%.  The percent of people in the population who grow up unsocialized and who, given the opportunity, will commit crimes, has increased.  The solution imposed by the legal system has been to increase the time served for the offense charged.  The number and severity of punishment for the crimes reported in 2003 at 1981 sentencing rates corresponds to a 2003 prison population of 490,000.  The actual prison population in 2003 was 2,086,000, a difference of 1.6 million.  Imagine the crime rate tomorrow, if today, 1.6 million inmates were released from United States prisons.[4]  And, when they are released, their criminal records will be made public to interfere with their ability to assimilate into society.

(5)  The ABA, to protect its membership’s role in a society controlled by organized religions, promotes no law school courses to clearly define how free people can protect themselves from those who preach that non-believers must die.   Believers proclaim that only they are right and everyone else is wrong.[5]

  (i) The world has been under siege by organized religion both before and after the United States was founded.[6]  The Torah, Bible and Qur’an all teach the same intolerant verses such as those found in Deuteronomy 13:6-9 and the Qur’an Sura 9:29.[7]  Unless the sources of religious violence are identified and eliminated, Americans are at risk of annihilation by use of weapons of mass destruction by those who seek to impose their religion on others. 

  (ii)  On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a statement made by Byzantine Orthodox Christian Emperor Manuel II Paleologus while he was under house arrest by Islamists during the period between 1394 and 1402 A.D.:  “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”  The Emperor and the Pope conveniently overlooked the history of Christian violence to spread their beliefs.  From 325 A.D. until when they were separated from government, Roman and Orthodox Christianity were spread by the sword.[8]  It is true that Islamists can be distinguished today because they continue to use violence to force submission to their religion.[9]   

  (iii)  A relatively new development is the practice of religious moderates to ignore the violent passages in their religious texts.  Because those texts continue to be used, none of the moderates can identify who in their midst will commit the next violent act.  In the name of their God, apparent moderates commit murder[10]; the Church of Christ, Scientist, teaches its followers to refuse medical treatment, which leads to death[11];  and the Amish deny their children an education beyond the eighth grade.[12]  All are positive their actions are condoned by God and will be rewarded in heaven.   

  (iv)  The use of violence to foster religious beliefs is evidenced by the high percentage of European populations that are Christian and Middle Eastern populations that are Islamist.  An organized religion can achieve 90% adherence to the faith only by the use of government sponsored or condoned force.    

  (v)  All organized religious people, without proof of accuracy of their claims, are permitted to indoctrinate their children to believe that their religion is the only valid religion in existence. 

  (vi) The United States has claimed victory in the Middle East without the requirement that Islam be separated from the Afghanistan and Iraqi Constitutions.   
 
(6) From the 1974 guilty plea of John W. Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, to the 2005 discovery of $90,000 in the freezer of Congressman William Jefferson, too many lawyers have demonstrated no regard for ethical conduct.  Ethics training must begin in grade school.  The judicial system must make that happen.    

(7) Because ABA members get paid to judge and represent parties in divorce and criminal matters, they have a conflict of interest in evaluating how to eliminate those social ills.  Divorce rates continue at the same rate as prior years.[13]  During 2004, the rate of births to unmarried women climbed four percent, to 1,470,189, the highest number ever recorded in the more than six decades for which comparable national statistics are available.[14]  The ABA promotes no courses to teach how to reduce these abhorrent conditions.
  
(8)  The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act (TANF), commonly called welfare reform, transferred the obligation to support children from the government to the men who fathered the children.  For men who earn below the poverty level, the effect has been to criminalize their poverty if they cannot pay the “child support” the legal system decides must be paid.   There are few poor men who can support one household, much less two.   Jail or detachment from organized society is the choice that faces men who cannot meet their court ordered child support.[15]  Lawyers must lead the way to educate the poor on the importance of marriage, how to pick a mate, abstinence from sex, and use of birth control to avoid the imposition of child support they cannot pay. 

(9) Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)[16] evidence has been accepted to prove that over 120 convictions in capital punishment cases were wrong.  To date, no reform of procedures has been made to increase the chance of correct decisions; and, no one has been held accountable for these wrongful convictions.[17]  Only with funding from the European Union was the ABA able to conduct a study of the conditions in the State Death Penalty Systems.[18]  The legal profession claims that all of the other convictions were correct and that the 120 proved wrong is a negligible percentage of the total.  There is no justification for that claim.  Consider that the best and brightest prosecutors and defense attorneys are assigned to capital punishment cases.  The presumption should be that for every wrongful death penalty conviction, there are 10,000 wrongful convictions for minor offenses handled by the less skilled.  The number of wrongful death penalty cases is low because the prosecutors and judges resist finding that the convicted person is innocent.  If the system were designed to provide justice without resistance, the number of wrongfully convicted findings would be significantly higher.  

D. Conclusion. 

Civilization’s first line of defense against tyranny is its formally educated.[19]  For reasons stated in our written Opposition, as supported by this presentation, the present legal system must be reformed to produce lawyers trained to eliminate tyranny and make Americans safe by non-violent means.      

Under most situations, reform of the existing accreditation agency would eliminate objections.  Not so with the ABA.  The ABA must be removed from the accreditation of law schools if law students are to be trained to search for reforms that may be detrimental to the best interests of judges and lawyers.  Once the ABA is removed from the accreditation process, Judicial Branches will be forced to seek adequate funding and law schools will be free to compete to provide law graduates with the skills and mindset necessary to meet public needs.    

JUDICIAL EQUALITY FOUNDATION, INC.

/s/ William S. Scott
By:  William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Executive Director
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

/s/ William S. Scott
William Sumner Scott, J. D.

1.  Marci A. Hamilton, God v The Gavel, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2005; Sam Harris, End of Faith, W. W. Norton, New York, 2005; 9/11 Commission Report, July 22, 2004, US Gov Printing Office; Kenneth R. Timmerman, Preachers of Hate, Crown Forum, NY, NY, 2003.
 
2.  Cobell v Norton, 392 F3d 461 (D.C. Cir 2004); currently styled Cobell, et al vs Kempthorne, (originally filed as Cobell v Babbitt on June 10, 1996).
 
3.  Roy Walmsley, World Prison Population List (fourth edition), www.prisonstudies.org

4.  Charles Murray, The Hallmark of the Underclass, Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2005.

5.  Dave Anderson, The Infidels, Authorhouse, Bloomington, In, 2005, page 3.

6.  Adam Zamoyski, Holy Madness, Penguin Putnam, Inc., New York, NY 1999.

7.  Deuteronomy 13:6-9:   “If your very own brother, or your son, or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the people around , whether near or far, from the one end of the land to the other) do not yield to him or listen to him.  Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him.  You must certainly put him to death.”  The New International Version, The Holy Bible, Zondervan Corporation, 1988, 13:6-11, page 185. Qur’an Sura 9:29 “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Las Day, nor hold forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, not acknowledge the Religion of Truth (sic Islam), from among people of the Book (sic Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah (sic poll tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The Qur’an, Al Arqam Dawa Center, Brooklyn, NY, 2005.

8.  The edict that the Nicene Creed was to be the only recognized religion by Constantine I in 325 A. D. and the outlaw of Arianism by Theodosius I in 379 A.D and use of the sword to carry out those edicts. 

9.  The Legacy of Jihad, edited by Andrew G. Bostom, MD, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2005; the May 2006, indictment and threat of the death to Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan for conversion from Islam to Christianity; the February 14, 1989, sentence of death by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the then Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, upon British author, Salman Rushdie, for having insulted Islam in his novel “The Satanic Verses”; the murder of Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004, because he produced the movie “Submission” to depict violence upon Islamic woman; the murder on May 17, 2006, of Turkish Judge Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin in retribution for his ruling against the Islamist head scarf; the violence that resulted in multiple deaths in response to twelve Danish cartoons of Muhammad published on September 30, 2005; the murder in Somalia of Sister Leonella and her bodyguard by two Islamists on September 17, 2006, in to protest the Pope’s speech; Swedish journalist Martin Adler, who was killed in June, 2006, during an Islamist demonstration in Mogadishu, and a prominent Somali peace activist, Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, who was murdered by Islamists a month later; BBC journalist Kate Peyton was shot dead in Somalia on February 9, 2005 – author’s comment: these actions are to stifle dissent – do you see the pattern.  

10.  On July 29, 1994, Paul Hill murdered Dr. John Bayard Britton, an abortion doctor and his escort.  An expert on extremist groups, Paul deArmond, says it’s hard to estimate how many people actually favor using deadly violence against clinics that offer abortions. “The number actually acting is small,” deArmond said, “but the support network (sic in the United States) is enormous.” On July 28, 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq, opened fire on Jewish volunteers, killing Pamela Waechter.  At the time of the shooting, it was reported by witnesses that Haq announced, “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel.”  Seattle Post – Intelligencer, July 29, 2006. 

11.  Rita Swan, CHILD, INC.,  http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/victims.htm; Hermanson v State, 604 So. 2d 775 (Fla 1992) for court refusal to hold anyone accountable for the death of a child from infant diabetes that could have been easily cured by a trip to the doctor. 

12.  Wisconsin v Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972).

13.  National Vital Statistics Report, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20.pdf

14.  National Center for Health Statistics, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/finalbirths04/finalbirths04.htm

15.  David R. Usher, Is Welfare Reform Really a Success?, http://www.newswithviews.com/Usher/david31.htm

16.  DNA is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic make-up of a person.  Its use provides identification of persons because it is accepted that no person’s DNA is the same.

17.  The ABA released a 459 page report on September 17, 2006, to recommend suspension of the death penalty in Florida for systematic failure to provide fair and accurate procedures.  ABA Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems, Executive Summary, page iii.  http://www.aclufl.org/issues/death_penalty/ABADeathPenaltyReport.pdf - last viewed 9-19-06

18.  Id., acknowledgements face-page. 

19.  Wilhelm Niemoller, Struggle and Testimony of a Confessing Church, Bielefeld L Bechauf, 1948, p 526, citing Albert Einstein’s first look to the formally educated in a Democratic Germany to stop Adolph Hitler. 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

 On this 22nd day of September, 2006, the undersigned certifies that a copy of the above Presentation request was sent by email to: Francesca Paris-Albertson@ed.gov and the original was filed by first class mail, postage prepaid, to: Ms. Francesca Paris-Albertson at U. S. Department of Education, Room 7110, MS 8509, 1990 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 and a copy to: John Sebert, Consultant to the ABA on Legal Education, American Bar Association, 321 N. Clark Street, 21st Floor, Chicago, IL 60610.
 
/s/ William S. Scott
William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Executive Director
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.
P. O. Box 380341
Miami, FL 33238

email: wss@jefound.org
website: http://jefound.org