Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and enter your name and email.
It was late 2020, deep into the pandemic. I was working as a consultant for a company on Capitol Hill. I had just dropped out of a worthless MBA program at Mississippi College that I’d started online and gotten into without submitting test scores. But what was really all the craze was that I was running to be Petal, Mississippi’s next mayor, and I was Ubering in nearby Hattiesburg—not just to make extra money but also because it was a good way to spread the word about my campaign. I had car magnets on each door reading “Gould for Mayor.” One night, I was pinged to pick up a man at Hattiesburg’s premier country club, Canebrake—a 30-minute drive from Petal and the kind of place where local lawyers, doctors, and overpaid Southern Miss administrators congregate.
When I pulled up to the club, the man opened the back door, got in my car, and told me to hold up for his wife. I could tell he was using the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of me. “Are you Jared Gould?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” I replied.
“I live in Petal,” he said. “I’ve seen your ads on Facebook, and I think one of your interns knocked on our door.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said. “Glad to know they’re working.”
He laughed and went silent until his wife arrived almost half an hour later. When she got in, he introduced me. “Oh, cool,” she said, and nothing more.
As I drove toward their destination, the man asked another question: “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” I said.
Seemingly shocked, he replied, “Aren’t you a little young to be running for mayor?”
I shot back, “Are you implying that the board of alderman, made up almost entirely of people above 65, are doing a great job?”
He nor his wife, probably both in their late 40s, spoke for the rest of the ride. When we arrived at the destination, neither he nor his wife tipped or thanked me. I assume I lost two votes that night.
[RELATED: The Infantilism of Higher Education]
That memory came to mind when I read Steven Lubet’s essay, “Just Because Teenagers Can Become Lawyers Doesn’t Mean They Should.”
Lubet critiques the California State Bar’s decision to allow 17-year-olds to pass the bar exam and practice law at 18. His primary argument is that individuals this young lack the maturity and life experience essential for effective legal practice. He also questions the credibility of the education the siblings, Sophia and Peter Park, who inspired his essay, received. They attended Northwestern California University School of Law, an unaccredited online institution.
I’m less concerned about accreditation—we know it is largely a scam—or even the idea that law school is the ultimate preparation for legal practice. Many lawyers I know—including close friends—have said law school taught them little about the day-to-day realities of practicing law. One friend’s boss, a partner at a top Manhattan firm, even argued at a dinner I attended that law school should be condensed to one year, followed by hands-on training at a given firm. Still, I understand Lubet’s point when he says the two should have gone to another school. And I agree with him that maturity and emotional intelligence are vital in the legal profession.
But maturity isn’t exclusively tied to age, as he seems to suggest. By dismissing young professionals outright, Lubet risks feeding into a larger problem: the infantilization of young adults.
Infantilization—what some call the “overgrown man-child” issue—has been a frequent topic of discussion this year. The Economist questioned whether Western culture’s glorification of immaturity, such as that seen in the cinema, is to blame, while even the New York Times—typically a leftist echo chamber—acknowledged that universities acting as helicopter parents are part of the problem.
But institutions like the cinema and higher education don’t operate in a vacuum. Older generations, like Lubet’s, control these institutions and bear responsibility for fostering environments of dependency. Gen Z didn’t invent participation trophies, turn higher education into a degree mill, or rig the job market with credential inflation. And it certainly wasn’t my 24-year-old self who left Petal in financial disarray, forcing a supposedly conservative city board to raise property taxes after promising not to.
Lubet argues that teens wanting to enter law should follow a more traditional route. For the Park siblings, that meant attending a prestigious California law school later in life as to enter the legal profession at an older age. But his reliance on age as a disqualifier overlooks two realities. First, new lawyers, regardless of age, rarely work independently. They operate under the supervision of experienced mentors, with even seasoned attorneys requiring senior approval on cases. Second, the skills Lubet deems essential—discretion, evidence evaluation, victim support—aren’t automatically acquired through traditional schooling, especially with today’s low academic standards. Real-world experience is going to teach discretion, evidence evaluation, and victim support more effectively.
Age-based gatekeeping also ignores the incompetence of many so-called “seasoned professionals.” In 2020, I saw how years of experience didn’t stop Petal’s leadership from making disastrous financial decisions. And we know it is not Gen Z judges letting violent offenders go free or turning a blind eye to illegal squatting in the Bronx. Dismissing young talent like the Park siblings solely due to their age perpetuates the very infantilization older generations decry.
[RELATED: WHY MILLENNIALS CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH]
Older generations can’t set low expectations for young people, coddle them, and then express disappointment when they meet those low expectations, but on the other hand, also sideline high achievers for being “too young” to handle serious responsibilities. This lose-lose mindset stifles ambition and growth. When a 17-year-old achieves something extraordinary, like passing the bar, the response should be encouragement—not arbitrary gatekeeping to preserve a flawed system.
What’s most frustrating about Lubet’s critique, however, is that as a legal scholar and prolific writer of legal history, he overlooks how the very system he claims these teens are too young to engage with was shaped by individuals not much older than them.
At 17, Alexander Hamilton was penning revolutionary political essays. He then served as a captain in the Continental Army and later became George Washington’s trusted aide. By 30, he had co-authored The Federalist Papers. James Monroe was 18 when he signed the Declaration of Independence, Lafayette turned the tide of the Revolution at 19, and Jonathan Dayton signed the Constitution at just 26.
History offers even younger examples outside the legal realm. Mary Shelley published Frankenstein at 20, Mozart composed his first symphony at 8, and today’s tech leaders like Zuckerberg and Gates prove that youth is no barrier to innovation—or responsibility.
The decision to let 17-year-olds pass the bar and practice law at 18 is certainly open to critique—I’m no fan of most things California does—but barring young people from serious opportunities infantilizes them just as much as coddling them does.
The solution to helping young people grow up requires a twofold effort. Older generations must abandon their contradictory approach—setting low expectations ensures they’ll be met while dismissing achievements and barring young people from serious responsibilities discourages ambition altogether. At the same time, as Minding the Campus intern Hannah Hutchins argues in this week’s top article, young people must develop greater discipline, proving they can handle significant responsibilities and leaving no room for doubt about their potential.
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“At the same time, as Minding the Campus intern Hannah Hutchins argues in this week’s top article, young people must develop greater discipline, proving they can handle significant responsibilities and leaving no room for doubt about their potential.”
She also mentions about how the brain of a 24-year-old is still developing and she’s right on that. My guess is that when the author is in his 50s, he will look back on the Uber exchange mentioned and think about how he could have more diplomatically made his point.
Yes some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were quite young, but there were also Thomas Jefferson (33), John Hancock (39), and Benjamin Franklin (70). George Washington, who died at age 67, was 44. The average age at death for the cohort was 65, it was not uncommon for a woman to marry in her teens.
The thing I have noticed about child prodigies over the years is that they are shockingly immature in some ways, even less mature than other persons their own age. They are very bright and very good at dealing with adults as equals in a limited sphere, but once you go outside of that, they are not the adults they appear to be.
A young Bill Gates was notorious for his inability to control his temper, often ending “critical and sarcastic” emails — often referred to as “flame mail” to his employees in the middle of the night. Decades older now, he doesn’t do that…
I ran for the state legislature at the age of 24 and cringe today at some of the things that I said in television interviews. I still hold (most) of the same positions I did then, I just would nuance things a whole lot better now. And the bigger difference is that back then, I thought I knew everything, now I know that I don’t, and it takes age to realize that the world is a mosaic of grey, not the black and white that a young person often sees it in.
George Mason, who was 62 at the time, derided the ‘deficiency of young politicians’ whose political opinions at the age of 21 would be ‘too crude & erroneous to merit an influence on public measures’ — he is the reason why the Constitution sets a minimum age of 35 for the President.
I agree that age often brings wisdom, and I too cringe at some of the things I said when I was younger. However, I believe your argument misses a crucial point: our society has become overly infantilized, largely due to systems created by older generations—who now conveniently deflect responsibility for the consequences.
On one hand, these generations have fostered an environment that stunts maturity by normalizing participation trophies, lowering academic standards, and removing rites of passage that demand real discipline and responsibility. On the other hand, they actively argue against or bar serious young individuals from taking on responsibilities that would enable growth, leaving little room for them to prove their potential.
It’s true that the brain continues to develop into the mid-20s, but this only underscores the importance of the experiences and challenges encountered during those formative years. Like learning a language, developing leadership and responsibility is easier when begun earlier. Yet, older generations—who control most major institutions, from higher education to politics—have effectively pulled up the ladder behind them. They achieved their positions at younger ages but now resist granting similar opportunities to today’s youth.
Historically, individuals in their late teens and early 20s were leading armies, starting families, and practicing law. Today, we balk at a 24-year-old running for mayor, while expecting young people to spend their 20s performing menial tasks in the hopes of someday being deemed “ready” for serious responsibilities. This disconnect is staggering: older generations criticize youth for being unprepared or irresponsible, while simultaneously denying them the opportunities that foster maturity and capability.
Older generations can’t have it both ways. If young people are to develop into responsible, capable adults, they need the chance to take on serious roles earlier, not after a decade of waiting in line.
Well, then there is the example of Jasiel F. Correia II, the 29-year-old former Mayor of Fall River (MA). The US Attorney’s Office summed him up thusly:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-fall-river-mayor-sentenced-six-years-federal-prison
Correia was first elected mayor at the age of 23 — a wonderkind — and a crook.
Not that Fall River has ever been particularly noted for good government…