Law Schools

No Law Students Show Up For Graduation

The College of Law's Class of 2016 just didn't show up to graduation.

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graduation commencement speech speaker cap gownIn theory, an outdoor graduation ceremony sounds nice. Mid-May tends to be a lovely time of year, and when the ceremony is scheduled for 9:30 a.m., you avoid the height of the spring sun.

But on Saturday, when the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign held its graduation ceremony, it was anything but nice outside. Cold, windy, and raining, the university-wide ceremony featured students trying to burrow into their graduation gowns and hold onto their mortarboards as the wind tried to take off with them.

Given this unfortunate weather, the College of Law’s Class of 2016 just didn’t show up. That’s right — they all skipped out on the University’s graduation ceremony, preferring to stay dry and warm and just hit up the law school’s ceremony.

President Timothy L. Killeen and Law School Dean Vikram Amar chose to deal with the situation with humor, not as a slight, and made the moment a memorable one.

Dean Amar was introduced, and, sensing not many from the law school made it to the ceremony, he incorporated their absence into his comments. But even he seemed surprised when it was revealed no one — not even some lone gunner — from the law school was present:

Thank you. The College of Law is full of learned, ambitious and multi-talented [students], most of whom are warm and dry in a room elsewhere on campus preparing for our own college ceremony. But I think we have a few hearty souls with us this morning, so will candidates from the College of Law please rise to receive their degrees?

[Laughter.]

I guess, I guess they’re all over there. In any event, to the extent there is one out there I’m not seeing, Mr. President, upon the overwhelming and wholehearted recommendation of the faculty and the chancellor, these candidates are presented for their respective degrees.

And President Killeen responds with similar humor:

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Thank you, Dean Amar. Upon the recommendation of the faculty and by the authority vested in me by the university’s board of trustees, I do — with great pride and wherever they happen to be — confer upon each of you the Master of Laws or Juris Doctor degrees for which you have been recommended and admit you to all the rights, privileges and responsibilities thereto appertaining. Congratulations!

Now who says there is a dumbing down of the legal profession? Seems like the law students were just using their smarts to stay warm.

Update 05/17/15 1:33p.m.: A member of the Illinois Law class of 2016 speaks up! Jane Genova reports on the controversy and a proud Illini gave this explanation for being a no-show:

I write as a member of the graduating class, and I think the explanation is far less sinister: nobody knew about the ceremony. The College of Law had its own ceremony, held at 1:30 pm, that was well attended. The ceremony mentioned in the ATL article took place at the football stadium at 9:30 am and was for the entire university, undergrads and grad students alike. The law school sent out an email breaking down the timeline for graduation day the week before graduation, and it contained no mention of that 9:30 ceremony. As far as we knew, the 1:30 ceremony was THE ceremony. This can still be a tale of ineptitude on the part of a law school administration if you squint hard enough, and I’m sure some graduates felt resentful as they walked out of that auditorium. But they definitely showed up.

(For all the Illinois law students that missed graduation, full video of the ceremony is available here, and Dean Amar’s comments are around the 1:50:09 mark.)

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Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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