I have participated for months in the Oregon and broader #DiplomaPrivilege conversations. For those advocating for diploma privilege, I thought you might appreciate the views of one dean. With thanks to @sjdprods & @profdaf who helped guide my thinking, let me offer a thread.
As a law school, we were confident that our graduates could pass the bar exam--under pre-pandemic circumstances. But, to state the obvious, the conditions for the upcoming exam will be, at best, uncertain.
To be sure, the Oregon Bar did its best to provide a socially distant exam, as I'm sure all bar examiners will, but neither we nor any Bar can be confident about how the public health guidance will shift between now and later this month.
Normally, we of course would advise our students to go forward and take the bar exam. However, if the administration is cancelled, or if a student is required to self-quarantine, for example, the student would not be permitted to take the exam.
Thus, we pursued #DiplomaPrivilege and encouraged our students to accept the diploma privilege provided by the Oregon Supreme Court. If it's important for an employer or for a graduate to have a UBE exam in hand, then the graduate can register for the February exam in a UBE jxn.
But the diploma privilege path exists in large part to alleviate the substantial uncertainties associated with the July administration of the bar exam. We saw very little downside risk in accepting a path to licensure that will rapidly become irrelevant as a graduate practices.
Ultimately, if an examinee/employer likes, the UBE will be available later under circumstances that are much more certain. After all, no one can say that a bar exam under pandemic circumstances can adequately measure minimum competency. (cc: @BarExamTracker @DiplomaPriv4All)
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