US law grad continues hunger strike
27 August 2010
A US law graduate has begun the third week of a hunger strike, in protest at the high tuition fees and optimistic employment statistics bandied about by top US law schools.
Zenovia Evans
blogs under the pseudonym Ethan Haines. She's the self-appointed "class representative" of a new generation of US attorneys facing an uncertain future saddled with debt in a depressed job market.
On August 5, Evans contacted ten randomly-chosen top 100 law schools, sending them a grandly-titled
Official Notice of Hunger Strike. Presumably that's not a form you learn how to fill in on the LPC. She then set aside her cutlery for the long haul, although she is apparently still allowing herself to drink smoothies. So it's not quite up there with Gandhi, is it Zenovia?
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Zenovia Evans in less hungry times
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Haines/Evans major beefs are law school employment statistics, law school rankings, and law school careers services. Quite why these points deserve the sort of protest normally reserved for fundamental human rights issues is is unclear. Any while many unemployed US law grads no doubt share her concerns, this hasn't won Haines much sympathy - in particular because it's been revealed she is the author of a pretty pro-law school guidebook for students. Indeed her website promoting the book enthuses "
now is the perfect time to go to law school".Â
So could this possibly be a publicity stunt? Well she's certainly generated plenty of publicity with articles appearing on
abovethelaw, the
Wall Street Journal and
USA Today. And has made it spot of difference to any law schools?
Nope.
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