Talk:University of Pennsylvania Law School

Athletic conference in lede sentence

Anonymous345123: Why are you insisting that the lede sentence of this article include the athletic conference of the school's parent university? That doesn't seem like it's at all relevant to the subject of this article. ElKevbo (talk) 22:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Though Ivy League is an athletic conference it also connotes elite academic institution. (For example , Ivy League limits ability of schools to focus on sports as the Ivy League does Not permit its members to award scholarships based on athletic skills but only financial need. The rules of Ivy League athletics focus on the student part of the student athlete. Reasonable minds can differ. I checked Colombia Law and Cornell Law and Yale Law and Harvard Law on Wikipedia and found out the more prestigious Yale Law and Harvard Law did not have Ivy League in lede while Cornell and Colombia Law did.

I copied below directly from Wikipedia entry for Ivy League.

"The term Ivy League is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism." OneMoreByte (talk) 04:51, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

You're being deliberately obtuse by trying to characterize the Ivy League as being little more than an "athletic conference" when you know full well that the Ivy League is widely -- if not universally -- understood to be a moniker indicating academic excellence and prestige.

You can readily see this description for other law school pages, not to mention numerous publications that commonly refer to "Ivy League law schools."

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/us/politics/09ivy.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/15/style/good-times-good-pay-for-summer-law-interns.html

https://archive.nytimes.com/thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/ivy/

https://archive.nytimes.com/economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/yale-harvard-law-taking-over-supreme-court/

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/26/us/harvard-students-call-for-affirmative-action.html

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyer_who_co-founded_virtual_law_partners_dies Anonymous345123 (talk) 03:41, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure to whom you are directing the last comment. I have learned a lot from elkevbo over the years and know him to be sincere in all his changes (including his deletion of Ivy League. I am not sure whether Ivy League should be included but do agree that Ivy League as defined in (and I quoted from) Wikipedia does state (and provides citations to support) that:

"The term Ivy League is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism" OneMoreByte (talk) 05:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

It's unnecessary to include this in the lede sentence to obliquely nod in the direction of "academic excellence and prestige" - the second sentence does this much more directly and effectively. Don't make readers guess or make inferences. ElKevbo (talk) 12:14, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

References