North Dakota Rep. Brandon Prichard came to the state house to pass radical anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and talk about his law school credentials. And he’s all out of law school credentials. Since joining the state legislature, he’s sponsored a bill to ban drag shows, said that, “every conservative state should put into code that Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their state to Him,” gotten his undies in a twist over both same-sex homecoming courts and porn, and “gone so far as to say that followers of non-Christian religions should have their right to worship curtailed.”
He also enjoys making “numerous comments and anecdotes about attending the University of Minnesota Law School” — an institution that he absolutely did not attend. And when the school posted on social media to clarify his lack of attendance, he took it in stride.
Just kidding. From AlterNet:
“If you look at the person who is behind the social media account, they have clearly anti-Christian things on their page,” Rep. Prichard said on a conservative televised public access program. “I believe that this was politically motivated in a lot of ways.”
Yeah, yeah, the libs are out to get you, but… did you actually go to Minnesota Law?
When the program’s hosts pressed him on his attendance status, Prichard eventually admitted he was enrolled in undergrad classes at the University of Minnesota, though he insisted that he was taking classes at the law school “that will overlap and allow me to continue being in law school after undergraduate.”
A representative of the law school confirmed to The Forum that Prichard was not enrolled there, and that if he did take a class, it was a “one-off class” offered “for the public” by the law school.
Is the school anti-Christian because they’ve denied him three times? Because I’m only counting two here. Theological inflation, perhaps?
Also congratulations to this “conservative televised public access program” for displaying the sort of dogged journalistic persistence that Meet the Press would never.
What is it with conservatives and fake credentials? George Santos is the platinum standard on this point, but not the only one. Herschel Walked said he graduated in the top 1 percent of his class at Georgia… and he famously left school to go pro. Remember the senior Trump State Department official who claimed she went to Harvard Business School but, um, didn’t? Or the Trump Housing official who claimed a J.D. when she only attended for two semesters? I personally know of a professor turned high-profile GOP consultant who used to go by “Dr.” until someone called up the library to ask for a copy of the guy’s dissertation and the school explained that it didn’t exist. Without fanfare, he started going by “Mr.” There are certainly bipartisan examples — and plenty of generic academic chicanery like, for instance, plagiarism — but it feels like there’s a lot more weight on one end of the scale when it comes to reaching for higher academic accolades. Almost as though the people who most loudly bash “out-of-control woke education” don’t really have any.
Regardless, despite Prichard’s assertion, it’s not anti-Christian discrimination to accurately read receipts from the registrar’s office. Yet…
“There very likely could be a lawsuit that comes from this. I mean, there really could be,” he added.
And that there conclusively settles that he does not, in fact, have a legal education.
GOP lawmaker accuses law school of anti-Christian bias after it confirms he lied about attending [AlterNet]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.