How Hillary Clinton Obtained Her U. of Arkansa Law School Teaching Job Revisited

During the 1970's, most people in the United States did not think that a teaching job at a publicly-funded state university law school should be given to an applicant with no previous law school teaching experience on the basis of nepotism--or just because the applicant's partner had local, state and national Democratic Party political connections and was a pal of the law school's dean.

Yet in her 2003 book Living History (for which she was paid more than $10 million in book advance and book royalties by the Viacom-CBS media conglomerate's Simon and Schuster book publishing subsidiary), former President Bill Clinton's wife--2016 Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton--wrote the following:

"...One night, Bill and I ended up in the kitchen talking about what each of us wanted to do after graduation [from Yale's Law School in Connecticut]...Bill was absolutely certain: He would go home to Arkansas and run for public office...After the [1972 Democratic National] convention, Gary Hart asked Bill to go to Texas, along with Taylor Branch...to run the McGovern campaign in that state. Bill asked me if I wanted to go, too. I did. Anne Wexler...offered me a job heading up the voter registration drive in Texas...It was obvious to all of us that Nixon was going to trounce McGovern in the November [1972] election...

"After completing law school in the spring of 1973, Bill took me on my first trip to Europe...Bill was coming home to Arkansas and taking a teaching job in Fayetteville, at the University of Arkansas School of Law...We agreed that I would come down to Arkansas after Christmas 1973...By the time I arrived for New Year's, Bill had decided to run for Congress...

"That spring [of 1974]...I went with Bill to a dinner party where I met some of his law school colleagues, including Wylie Davis, then the Dean. As I was leaving, Dean Davis told me to let him know if I ever wanted to teach...I decided to take him up on the idea...I asked what I'd be teaching, and he said he would tell me when I got there...On a hot August [1974] evening, the day I arrived, I saw Bill give a campaign speech in Bentonville. The next day I attended the reception for the new law school faculty...I'd be doing what I could to help Bill in his campaign...Bill Bassett, President of the bar association, took me around to meet the local lawyers and judges...

"Classes started the next morning. I had never taught law school...and was barely older than most of my students..."