California just posted its worst bar exam passage rate in 70 years, and somehow that’s not the dumbest news we have about them this week. As California continues its draconian, trade restricting bar grading policy — despite the pleas of academics, common sense, and a comprehensive scientific study — and pawn off the blame for its own market manipulation on “students must be getting dumber” nonsense, it turns out the California Bar is truly the dumbest of them all.

An essay on Medium, penned by a graduate who unfortunately failed the February exam, unleashes a hilarious broadside against the tinpot bureaucracy behind the exam. To set the scene, those who didn’t pass the exam were notified on May 18 with the following message of encouragement:

In order to help improve performance on the bar exam, we recently launched the Productive Mindset Intervention Program. Through this program and ongoing study, we hope to better understand the downward trend of bar exam pass rates. The Productive Mindset Intervention Program will be available to applicants beginning with the July 2018 Bar Exam. This program is a partnership with researchers at Stanford University, the University of Southern California, and Indiana University. The program is designed to improve exam performance across the board.

But, as the essayist learned, while this graduate-focused initiative sounds wonderful, it’s also run by the California State Bar, so….

Well, gee. This program sounds really great! You may be wondering, as I was, “How do I sign up?” The answer is: You can’t! Haha! No, seriously. You can no longer sign up for the program that, according to the Executive Director of the State Bar of California on May 18th, had just been “recently launched” for the July 2018 exam. I found this out by calling the Los Angeles Office of Admissions and asking for information on how to enroll in the program. I was told that the deadline for enrollment was May 14th, 2018. Some might find that an odd date to choose, as it is four days before the Bar Exam results were released. Meaning that anyone who had failed the February administration and would be registering for the July exam had missed the enrollment deadline for a program designed to improve their performance in July.

Yes, the California Bar used their failure notifications to pimp a program that they knew none of those graduates could enroll in. Let that sink in. Because the author of this essay has let it sink in and remains… perplexed:

Much angrier now, I demanded to have the names of the persons in charge of running the “Productive Mindset Intervention Program,” and for their contact information. If you’re reading this and you’re wearing a hat, I would advise holding onto it before proceeding on and reading the response I received. The words that stumbled out of the man on the other line’s mouth were “no one has been appointed for that yet.” No one. Has been appointed. For that. Yet.

In a sense, this is the perfect metaphor for the California Bar — there’s literally no one minding the wheel. When the law school deans rolled into the California Supreme Court with empirical data and asked that body to exercise a little of its theoretical oversight authority to fix the problem, the Court rolled over like we should have always expected.

That’s exactly the sort of service you expect from a test that brings in roughly $12,040,000 every year in fees! And they’d have even more if they could find a way to charge for this Productive Mindset Intervention Program… but that would require getting people enrolled first.

Check out the full essay for a thorough rundown of everything these people have done to screw over young lawyers — often along racial and gender lines — for years. And it’ll probably keep doing this for years to come.

Because no one is running this show.

“Go F*ck Yourself” — State Bar of California [Medium]

Earlier: California Posts Worst Bar Exam Results The State Has Seen In Almost 70 Years

What’s The Matter With California? Bar Exam Edition

Who’s To Blame For School’s ‘Horrific’ Bar Results? Maybe The California Bar Examiners.

California Supreme Court Issues Decision On Bar Exam Cut Score

Joe Patrice is an 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.