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Northwestern prof named director of ABF Adam Henry Leading law school news today, Northwestern University announces that Professor Robert Nelson has been named the newest director of the American Bar Foundation, an nonprofit institute for sociolegal and other interdisciplinary research. Nelson teaches in the sociology department at Northwestern but also has a courtesy appointment at the Northwestern University School of Law. Among his prolific scholarship he counts an award-winning book on gender discrimination and several publications on the changing nature of the legal profession. Also out of Evanston today is a Daily Northwestern editorial applauding the law school's decision to permit military recruiters on campus. Under the controversial Solomon Amendment, the Secretary of Defense may deny federal funding to institutions that themselves deny access to military recruiters. A coalition of law schools sued the Department of Defense and other federal agencies last September, claiming the law to be unconstitutional. 6:12 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Splitting the baby? Dickinson mulls two-campus option Adam Henry Leading today's law school news is an update to the battle for the future whereabouts of the Dickinson School of Law. School officials and alumni have disagreed sharply on whether to keep the school in Carlisle, with its proximity to Harrisburg's state and federal courts, or to relocate it to State College, with parent institution Penn State and its promise of a new facility. Penn State President Graham Spanier suggests a two-campus solution in today's Patriot-News that might satisfy all parties. It would move most of the programs to a new structure in State College while retaining certain essential programs in a renovated structure in Carlisle. Read more on the latest in this developing story here. In other law school news, the Yale Daily News reports today on the experiences of conservative students at Yale Law School, an institution famous for its liberalism and social activism. Many of these self-proclaimed conservatives are finding the comfort of like-minded peers in organizations like the Yale Law School Federalist Society, whose vice-president registers his dissatisfaction with the school's "ultra-liberal and extremely intolerant" student body in the YDN's full story. WVLT Volunteer TV in Knoxville reports today on the challenges of increasing minority enrollment at the University of Tennessee College of Law. Although the Supreme Court approved the limited consideration of race and ethnicity in its ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger in June 2003, the school is constrained by "a special legal obligation not to discriminate to overcome past discrimination." That obligation follows from a 35-year-old state court case. Finally, continuing the trend inaugurated in yesterday's law schools brief, a commencement speaker announcement: the Northwestern University School of Law announces that Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) will deliver the main address at the school's graduation convocation on May 16. Biden, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, holds a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and teaches a seminar on constitutional law at the Widener University School of Law. 5:07 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Penn Law professor appointed to Holocaust Council Adam Henry In law school news today, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports that Professor Harry Reicher of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law has been appointed by President Bush to the Holocaust Memorial Council. As adjunct professor at Penn Law, Reicher created the school's pioneering "Law and the Holocaust" course, the first of its kind to be offered at a law school; he continues to study Nazi efforts to legalize their state-supported discrimination. With his new appointment, he joins 54 presidential appointees, ten congressional representatives, and three ex-officio Cabinet members in governing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In other news, law schools across the country have begun to release information about keynote speakers for their 2004 commencement ceremonies. Today, the Toledo Blade reports that media mogul and mega-philanthropist Ted Turner has accepted an invitation to speak at the May 8 ceremony of the University of Toledo College of Law. Finally, as promised in Paper Chase's initial report on February 6th, the University of Pittsburgh now offers video from Professor Derrick Bell's keynote speech at the School of Law's Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Symposium. Click here and scroll down for the video link to Bell's speech, entitled "Silent Covenant: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform." 6:09 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Conflict of interest? Former ABA accreditors seek accreditation as deans Adam Henry Leading today's law school news, the Chicago Tribune offers a revealing report on the growing coziness between the American Bar Association and the administrations of fledgling law schools seeking accreditation. A number of the schools have taken to hiring deans directly from the ABA's accreditation committee, as Concord Law School did most recently, in December 2003. Not surprisingly, the trend has raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest and even violations of the ABA's ethics code. The ABA's accreditation process has been the subject of continued controversy since at least 1995, when it settled an antitrust suit brought by the Department of Justice. It now finds itself in an ongoing legal battle over the accreditation status of Western State University College of Law. Read the latest in that battle here. Elsewhere, the Legal Intelligencer reports that a task force from the National Association for Law Placement has recommended changes to its law firm recruiting guidelines that ultimately shorten the period in which students can weigh offers for employment. NALP says that the impetus for reform came from law firms concerned with logistical logjams created by students holding onto multiple offers until the end of the prescribed period. According to the Intelligencer, NALP's board of directors will consider the recommended changes at a meeting on Saturday, and if it approves them, the changes will be implemented on a trial basis for the fall recruiting season. 5:50 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News Comments by Haloscan |
