You know, I've been thinking that the world of legal academia is a very status-obsessed world. Law professors care about their reputations and about the reputations of the institutions at which they teach, especially among their peers within the larger legal academic community in the United States.
Well, here's an idea:
What if Glenn Reynolds' fellow faculty members at the University of Tennessee College of Law knew about the kinds of lies and outrageous distortions he regularly posts on his website? How do you think they would view him, especially when his wildly inaccurate and out-of-touch-with-reality posts tend to reflect badly upon the institution that employs him . . . and THEM?
I have a funny feeling that a lot of Glenn's colleagues would be none to happy with him and would make their displeasure toward him felt.
(Let me also add, that at this point in his career the guy probably has tenure, so this in no way would threaten his job. But it would threaten to embarass him in the eyes of his collegues.)
Of course, my belief presupposes that at UT, Glenn is probably one of their most right-wing faculty memebers. Nonetheless, from what I've seen, the world of legal academia tends to lean more toward the liberal political end of the spectrum rather than the right-wing end, and I suspect that this is the case even at a place like UT.
Anyway, here is my idea:
What if we were to e-mail his fellow faculty members and POLITELY let them know about the kinds of specifc crap Glenn regularly writes? Wouldn't it be interesting, for example, to e-mail them the actual post that Kos has on his front page today, along with links to stories that actually shed light on what a liar Glenn is? We could then bring the point home about how such wildly inaccurate statements by Glenn reflect badly upon UT, and leave the overall impression that it is a second-rate academic institution.
If any one is interested in doing this, here is the page that has the complete list of the UT law school faculty. If you click on the faculty members' individual pictures, you can see what their e-mail addresses are:
http://www.law.utk.edu/FACULTY/facadminfacinfo.htm
At this point, I'm floating this as an idea. I would be interested in various people's feedback before any of us actually follow through with it.
Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not?
Update [2005-1-30 2:57:43 by Progressive]:
Thanks for weighing in on my idea everybody. Perhaps it is a waste of time to do what I suggested.
On another note, check out the latest idiocy from Professor Glenn that blogger Oliver Willis was kind enough to highlight for us:
http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/1769
(Thanks to atrios, from whom I was tipped off about this.)