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U. Alabama answers law professor Brophy's call, acknowledges slavery ties Adam Henry One month after publicly calling upon his university to acknowledge its historical ties to slavery, Professor Alfred Brophy of the University of Alabama School of Law must be gratified with the university's answer. As announced in a press release Thursday, the University of Alabama has resolved to "more formally recognize the African-American history of its campus." Among its initiatives, it plans to recognize slave burial sites and buildings associated with slavery on campus, and to re-submit its application for a federal historic marker on the site of Governor George Wallace's 1963 stand against integration. Brophy has also called upon the university to apologize for its role in slavery, and according to today's Birmingham News, he has personally drafted the apology for the Faculty Senate's consideration next week. See JURIST's initial report on the matter here. Elsewhere, the Western New England College of Law has announced plans to launch Massachusetts's first LLM degree program in estate planning in the fall of 2005. According to the Western Mass Law Tribune, WNECL will join only two other schools of law nationally in offering such such a program. Professor and program director Frederick Royal will target the program to solo practitioners and small firms in the school's vicinity. See the Tribune's full report here. 2:48 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Vermont Law School names Chicago attorney as new dean Adam Henry The Vermont Law School in South Royalton, VT has named Chicago attorney Geoffrey B. Shields as its seventh dean and president, effective August 1. Shields is not himself a graduate of the school, but he maintains several ties to the state: among them, he is a member of the Vermont bar and has maintained a working farm in the state for many years. Today's Brattleboro Reformer describes these ties and details Shields's ambitions for the law school. According to the chair of the school's board of trustees, who comments in the school's press release, the selection of Shields "signals a decision by VLS to broaden its reach and is consistent with VLS's strategic plan to elevate the recognition of our fine J.D. program while continuing to strengthen our top-rated environmental program." In commencement speaker news, Ave Maria Law School has announced that US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will address its second graduating class in a ceremony on May 16. Thomas's selection as speaker furthers a relationship he already enjoys with the Ypsilanti institution. In 1999, he conducted the school's first law lecture and gave the fledgling school his ringing endorsement. At this year's commencement, Thomas will also receive an honorary degree. The Detroit Free Press has the full story here. In news concerning another Catholic institution, the American Life League is planning to protest an award ceremony Friday at the Seton Hall Law School. At the ceremony, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is presenting a medal in her name to Judge Maryanne Trump Barry of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently struck down New Jersey abortion regulations. The ALL, whose "distinguishing mark ... is our absolute commitment to the sacredness of human life," is calling upon Newark's archbishop to ban the event. See its release here. Finally, April 15 is tax day, and Professor Paul Caron of the University of Cincinnati College of Law has aptly chosen the day to launch his new TaxProf Blog, which he bills as "the only web source of resources, news, and information of interest to law school tax professors in their scholarship and teaching." Professor Caron is also the editor of JURIST's Tax Law Subject Guide. Check them both out. 4:50 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
Vanderbilt plan may diversify staffs of student-edited journals Adam Henry The faculty at Vanderbilt University Law School is considering a proposal that would reserve spots on all three of the school's student-edited journals to be filled based solely on students' writing samples and not grades. Supporters of the plan hope that the change will help to diversify the editorial staffs of the journals, none of which has featured even a single black student in the past two years. The Tennessean examines the journals' "mysterious problem" here. See the NYU Law Review's Diversity and Affirmative Action Policy for an example of a plan in place. Elsewhere, the Alligator reports today on construction at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law that will move law students to the the university's main campus later this month. Not surprisingly, the $22 milllion project was instituted after the American Bar Association raised concerns about the amount of space in existing facilities. The ABA's Section of Legal Education requires "adequate" physical facilities in Chapter 7 of its Standards for Approval, and often prompts new construction with its warnings of inadequacy. See an earlier JURIST story here. 12:53 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News
BU law dean to step down at year's end, following funding frustration Adam Henry Dean Ronald Cass of the Boston University School of Law announced Friday that he will step down at the end of the academic year after 14 years as BU dean. In a letter addressed to the BUSL community, Cass cites the school's 20-place increase in US News rankings during his tenure as an indication of marked improvement, but he expresses frustration with the lack of funding for a new facility. A Boston Globe piece in early March revealed that Cass had overstated the funding that existed by relying on a liberal approach to booking gifts. He tells the university's Daily Free Press, however, that fundraising concerns did not motivate his decision. In other law school news, four law professors have been named 2004 Fellows by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. They are Stuart Banner of UCLA, Lucian Bebchuk of Harvard, Timur Kuran of USC, and Rebecca Scott of the University of Michigan. According to the foundation's press release, "Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment." Finally, a law professor at the University of Dayton School of Law has compiled a controversial ranking of American law schools by just one factor: whiteness. Vernellia Randall's methodology gives cause for concern, however. Most troublingly, she calculates whiteness "by adding percent of white students to the percent of unknown, that is students whose race is not known" [emphasis added]. In the report's introduction, she characterizes law schools as a "sea of whiteness" and "dangerous...to our society." Find her full 2004 Whitest Law School Report here. 1:53 PM | | link to this post | latest Law School News Comments by Haloscan |
