Whittier Law Professor Seval Yildirim asserts that bodies are important, but does that include Whittier's student body?

Bodies are very important, no question. From the tip of your nosie, down to your ten little toesies, bodies can do many wonderful things, such as potently and crucially challenging the State and other power structures.

 

Consider the following insight from tenured Whittier Law Professor Seval Yildirim:

"I have been thinking about the human body as the most potent and crucial site of resistance against the State. I have written about the Muslim woman’s hair as a site of struggle between different political narratives. . . but the recent rise in protests around the world, especially since the Arab uprisings of 2011. . .have highlighted that the human body is increasingly the primary means of any sustained protest against power structures, including the State."    

Prof. Yildirim promises to "expand more on this" as her thoughts "crystallize," so who knows what else we may learn about our bodies? Thank goodness that Yildirim has a law professor’s six figure salary, plus ample free time to contemplate these matters. And thank goodness that Professor Yildirim has tenure. For, as Yildirim movingly explained in this thread (comment at  April 05, 2013 at 09:04 AM): "Many of us self-censor before tenure in our writing, at conferences, during faculty meetings, or on blogs like this, because we are fully cognizant that we are already swimming upstream because of who and/or what we are. In the midst of the current anti-intellectual climate where educational structures are being critiqued solely from an economic angle, I find even the thought of dismantling tenure extremely scary for those of us who are peripheral to academic power structures (for various and varying reasons)."

Prof. Yildirim does not seem to have ever held an actual legal job. She got a JD from NYU in 2002, then a LLM from NYU, and then did a year as a visiting scholar at NYU’s Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies. In 2005, she landed a law professorship at Whittier, where she remains. According to her faculty bio, Yildirim's research focuses on secularism in comparative contexts, international human rights and issues of human dignity, specifically regarding minority religious and sexual identities, and law’s effects on identity formation.

 

Prof. Yildirim’s faculty bio asserts that she "maintains a pro bono practice." It elaborates that "She was pro bono counsel to Kimberlie Webb in Webb v. City of Philadelphia, 562 F.3d 256 (3rd Cir. 2009), seeking recognition of Webb’s free exercise right to wear a religious headcovering under her police uniform hat. An account of Professor Yildirim’s experience litigating the appeal can be found in the Law and Religion volume of Cases in Context series by Aspen Publishers."

 However, if you look up  the Court's opinion, you discover that Yildirim is only one of three listed attorneys on the Third Circuit appeal, and did not handle the oral argument. See Webb, 562 F.3d at 257 ("Jeffrey M. Pollock, Esquire (Argued), Abbey T. Harris, Esquire, Fox Rothschild LLP, Lawrenceville, NJ, Seval Yildirim, Esquire, Costa Mesa, CA, for Appellant"). Jeffrey Pollock happens to be Yildirim's husband. From Yildirim's own account in Law and Religion: Cases in Context, it seems likely that Yildirim's main contribution was to  read about Webb's request for a pro bono appellate lawyer on a listserve and then ask hubby, a litigation attorney with Fox Rothschild, to handle the case pro bono. See Leslie C. Griffin (2010-03-10). Law and Religion: Cases in Context (Law & Business) (p. 302). Aspen Publishers (Wolters Kluwer Legal). Kindle Edition. ("Seval Yildirim (this author), a professor at Whittier Law School, came across the [listserve] message. . . .This police officer’s struggle was of great interest. She called upon her spouse, Jeffrey M. Pollock, a litigation partner with Fox Rothschild, L.L.P., a Philadelphia-based law firm").

Writing a single appellate brief, even a tricky and important one, is only a few weeks in the work life of an appellate specialist. Moreover, the Third Circuit did not even address the constitutional arguments advanced in Webb v. City of Philadelphia, but deemed them to be procedurally forfeited because they were not raised at the District Court level. So how did Yildirim manage to yap about Webb for about 35 pages in the chapter she wrote in Law and Religion: Cases in Context? While far from the worst aspect of the scam, it is not charming when a law professor does a little pro bono dabbling, or joins the legal advisory board of a public interest organization, or litigates a single appeal under the tutelage of his or her spouse and then uses that to try to create the impression that he or she is an experienced lawyer.

 

Maybe Yildirim, in crystallizing her thoughts, will consider issues of human dignity as they relate to another "body" --namely, the student body of Whittier Law School, the kids who dump a borrowed fortune into the pockets of Yildirim and other dubiously qualified law professors in the trust and expectation that they will be trained to be lawyers. Maybe she will note that her unfortunate students will be brutally scammed even relative to law students elsewhere. The average debt load (excluding undergrad debt) for a graduating Whittier JD is $143,536, the 10th highest among the 201 ABA accredited law schools. However, the percentage of Whittier law grads from the class of 2012 who obtained bar-required full-time, long-term, non-solo jobs within nine months of graduation (i.e. its Law School Transparency [LST] employment score) was a dismal 31.2%, which was the 11th worst outcome among the 201 ABA-approved law schools. And even that is a significant improvement over 2011, when Whittier ranked second from the bottom among the 201 schools, with an incredible 17.1% LST employment score.