The Volokh Conspiracy - The South Carolina Bar Scandal:

There's a little scandal brewing in South Carolina over the state Supreme Court's decision to eliminate the results from one question, allowing several people to pass who would otherwise have failed, including the daughter of a influential local pol. Louisville Dean Jim Chen has been on the case. He provides background and links here, and an update here.

UPDATE: Jim Chen has still more:

Legal professionals, in South Carolina and the rest of the nation, have every reason to question the Supreme Court's decision to mint 20 new lawyers who, by every account, flunked South Carolina's July 2007 bar exam. They have reason to doubt the high court's outlandishly illogical explanation. This sort of thing has happened before; now it is being reinstitutionalized anew. Not Very Bright's timeline leaves no room for doubt: this was a hamfisted, naked power play by South Carolina's judiciary, carried out at the expense of that state's bar and larger public. Yet, like many observers who are far closer to South Carolina than I am, I too expect this scandal to fade from public view as attention turns to Thanksgiving and this weekend's Clemson-Carolina football game. Panem et circenses, indeed.

The simple explanation is, as usual, correct and complete. South Carolina's lawyers, by my informal survey, are horrified by the Supreme Court's abuse of power. They rue how this episode will resonate for years, even decades, as yet another generation of South Carolinians learns that power, not prowess, that pedigree, not performance, holds the key to success. They cringe at the thought of outsiders consigning this most quintessentially Southern of Southern states to perpetual cultural irrelevance in the American pageant.

	[Jonathan Adler, November 25, 2007 at 12:54pm] Trackbacks The South Carolina Bar Scandal: There's a little scandal brewing in South Carolina over the state Supreme Court's decision to eliminate the results from one question, allowing several people to pass who would otherwise have failed, including the daughter of a influential local pol. Louisville Dean Jim Chen has been on the case. He provides background and links here, and an update here. UPDATE: Jim Chen has still more: Legal professionals, in South Carolina and the rest of the nation, have every reason to question the Supreme Court's decision to mint 20 new lawyers who, by every account, flunked South Carolina's July 2007 bar exam. They have reason to doubt the high court's outlandishly illogical explanation. This sort of thing has happened before; now it is being reinstitutionalized anew. Not Very Bright's timeline leaves no room for doubt: this was a hamfisted, naked power play by South Carolina's judiciary, carried out at the expense of that state's bar and larger public. Yet, like many observers who are far closer to South Carolina than I am, I too expect this scandal to fade from public view as attention turns to Thanksgiving and this weekend's Clemson-Carolina football game. Panem et circenses, indeed. The simple explanation is, as usual, correct and complete. South Carolina's lawyers, by my informal survey, are horrified by the Supreme Court's abuse of power. They rue how this episode will resonate for years, even decades, as yet another generation of South Carolinians learns that power, not prowess, that pedigree, not performance, holds the key to success. They cringe at the thought of outsiders consigning this most quintessentially Southern of Southern states to perpetual cultural irrelevance in the American pageant.