A University of the First Class: Lino A. Graglia

By Lino A. Graglia in A University of the First Class, Features, May | June 2013 on April 30, 2013 at 9:58 am | No Comments

On the occasion of the Alcalde’s 100th anniversary, we asked Longhorns what “a University of the first class” means to them.

A University of the First Class

Lino A. Graglia

Dalton Cross Professor of Law, The University of Texas School of Law

The market test for value or “class” is price. For nonprofit schools the price can be said to be the required admission scores, and level of demand can be indicated by the rejection rate. For example, out of some 200 law schools in the country, eight of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court are graduates of just two: Harvard and Yale, which have extremely high admission requirements and rejection rates. They are clearly schools of the first class. The Texas Law School had an alumnus on the Supreme Court (Tom Clark), has been fairly successful in getting its graduates Supreme Court clerkships, and has high (though not extreme) admission requirements and rejection rate. I conclude that it is a school of the first class, though not at the very top of the class.