Leonard M. Baynes: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Librado Romero / New York Times

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg touched many of our lives.  For some the connection was personal, for others as a consequence of her leadership in the academy and then as a judge and then justice.  Many have written about those connections. I was most touched by that written by my classmate and now dean of the University of Houston Law Center, Leonard M. Baynes.  Professor Ginsburg and Professor Kellis Parker, were and remain, as Dean Baynes notes, godsends for many of us. They remain so.

 With his permission I have re-posted his beautiful tribute and remembrance.

 

“How to Become a Full Time Law Professor” -- Transcript of Remarks Delivered at the Panel Session, Panel 4G: How to Become a Full-Time Law Professor –A Workshop for Aspirants, 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference

The 4th National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference took place 21-24 March 2019 in a beautiful setting, at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.,For more information see HERE. Great thanks to American's Dean Camille Nelson for the vision to realize this important gathering.

Among the most important work of the People of Color Scholarship Conferences is their mentoring for people seeking entry into the legal academy, and then mentoring young scholars to enhance the prospects of career success. I was delighted to contribute in some way to that work at a Workshop for Law Teaching Aspirants--"How to Become a Full Time Law Professor"--at the 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference, joining an impressive group of colleagues--Craig Konnoth (Colorado), Melinda Molina (Capital), Anita Sinha (American), and moderated by the great Alfreda Robinson (George Washington).

This post includes the transcript of my remarks at the panel: How to Become a Full Time Law Professor.  A revised version will be included along with the transcripts of the remarks by our co-panelists to be published in the Journal of Legal Education.  

The PowerPoints referenced in the Remarks and more formation on the panel may be accessed HERE.

"How to Become a Full time Law Professor"--A Workshop for Aspirants at the 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference

The 4th National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference takes place this weekend in a beautiful setting, at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., 21-24 March 2019. For more information see HERE. Great thanks to American's Dean Camille Nelson for the vision to realize this important gathering.

Among the most important work of the People of Color Scholarship Conferences is their mentoring for people seeking entry into the legal academy, and then mentoring young scholars to enhance the prospects of career success. I was delighted to contribute in some way to that work at a Workshop for Law Teaching Aspirants--"How to Become a Full Time Law Professor"--at the 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference.  To those ends I joined an impressive group of colleagues--Craig Konnoth (Colorado), Melinda Molina (Capital), Anita Sinha (American), and moderated by the great Alfreda Robinson (George Washington).  

The PowerPoints of the workshop follow along with the Panel description.

New Issue of Journal of Legal Education: On the Relationship Between American Legal Education, Globalization, and Internationalism

The American Legal academy continues to consider its relationship to the rest of the world. That consideration takes two quite distinct forms. The first involves the reception of the "foreign" within the United States--and that requires combating a parochialism and legal-centrism long embedded in American legal education. The second involves the projection of Americanism in law and legal education outward. This is something that the American academy has been quite eager to participate in, especially after 1989. It reflects the notions of the central role of American sensibilities in the technical assistance required for other states to "catch up" under the guidance of a more mature system with good (and perhaps universal) principles. 

I have considered these issues from time to time. See e.g., 'Internationalizing the American Law School Curriculum (in Light of the Carnegie Foundation’s Report),' in The Internationalization of Law and Legal Education 49-112 (Jan Klabbers and Mortimer Sellers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media B.V., 2008); 'Global Law Schools on U.S. Models: Emerging Models of Consensus-Based Internationalization or Markets-Based Americanization Models of Global Legal Education,' 2 Revista de Educación y Derecho/Education and Law Review (España) 4:1-53 (April-Sept. 2011) (with Bret Stancil); 'Human Rights and Legal Education in the Western Hemisphere: Legal Parochialism and Hollow Universalism,' 21(1) Penn State International Law Review 115-155 (2002); and 'General Principles of Academic Specialization By Means of Certificate or Concentration Programs: Creating a Certificate Program in International, Comparative and Foreign Law at Penn State,' 20 Penn. State International Law Review 67 (2001).

This month the flagship journal of the Association of American Law Schools, the Journal of Legal Education, has devoted a substantial amount its Issue 67-4 to the relationship between American legal education and globalization and internationalism, through an examination of international and comparative law. Special thanks to the editors of this issue, American University's Camille A. Nelson and Anthony E. Varona for putting together a group of quite thought provoking articles.

Links to the articles follow.

Thoughts on Mass Tenure Revocation at Vermont Law School in the Shadow of the Market and Beyond Shared Governance

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

The decision by the Vermont Law School to terminate the tenured positions of more than half of its faculty (precise numbers rumored but unavailable as of the date of this posting) and then to rehire some as contract faculty at presumably lower cost (to the Vermont Law School anyway) has been circulating for a number of days now.

Fourteen out of 19 members of the Vermont Law School faculty lost tenure on July 1 as part of a restructuring effort at the South Royalton institution. . . . Professors said they were informed of the decision to revoke tenure in a private meeting with McHenry and Academic Dean Sean Nolan. Faculty members were told they could choose to continue teaching another year under a new contract or they could opt for six month contracts with varying teaching requirements and salaries, or they could leave. Tenured faculty were required to sign a non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreement, prohibiting them from speaking to anyone except their spouses. The agreement prohibited faculty from making derogatory remarks about Vermont Law School and its administration. (Katy Savage, "Vermont Law School revokes tenure for 75 percent of faculty," VTDigger 15 July 2018)

The reactions are what might be expected, though surprisingly muted (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here). In the end, after the hand wringing and acrimony, the substance of this action will likely remain undisturbed. "If the reports are accurate, Vermont has essentially acted as if tenure does not exist. This could potentially raise questions about whether Vermont is in compliance with ABA standard 405, but it is unclear how assertive the ABA or site visit teams will be in enforcing those standards." (How secure is tenure? (Michael Simkovic)).

For this post I offer some brief thoughts on what is likely to be a very useful and evolving addition to the toolkit of administrators as they continue the hard task of commodifying and capitalizing education within what is still nostalgically referenced as "the university." The focus is not on the lawyering of protection for those faculty with respect to whom tenure has been made a mockery, though one clothed in the delightfully unctuous ululations of administrator speak. Rather the reflections here focus on the ways in which these actions evidence more generally a perhaps significant changes of power relations within an institution in which the notions of traditional shared governance has withered away.  The character of that withering away is itself of interest, as the successful de-professionalization of the faculty has opened the way for their replacement in governance by an emerging corps of professional administrators only some of whom are drawn from their ranks who (ironically) remain protected by tenure. 

New From the Journal of Legal Education--Links to Emerging Orthodoxies From the Legal Academic Sector in the U.S.

I am happy to pass along links to the latest issue of the American Journal of Legal Education.  It represents the thinking of the American legal academic elite and thus is a useful gauge of the evolving orthodoxies  (and emerging thinking) among that group.

From the Journal of Legal Education: Legal Academics Speak to Sexual Harassment, Academic Policies and Title IX

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2017)

In 2016, Georgetown Law, The Journal of Legal Education and the Georgetown Gender Justice Project hosted a conference on the subject of Sexual Assault and Academic Freedom on College Campuses. The Press Release Conference Note explained the scope of the Conference:

Universities occupy a hallowed position in American culture. But numerous studies showing high rates of sexual assault on college campuses, as well as several well-publicized incidents, have spurred not only a wave of concern about students' safety but also new and more rigorous policies for addressing these assaults in universities and colleges across the country. While the importance of protecting students from violence is unquestioned, these new policies call for consideration of issues such as the appropriate role of administrative decision-making, the role of governmental regulations, the need for academic freedom, and the rule of law generally. How can we best ensure an educational environment free from sexual violence but, at the same time, provide for academic freedom and fair processes? How might we best maintain academic freedom without making it a defensive shield against enforcing equal opportunity requirements within academic life? These and related questions will inform the symposium.

The Journal of Legal Education has now published articles from that conference in its Summer 2017 issue.  The articles, with links, follow.  The articles merit serious study and discussion:

Call for Papers: Dickinson Law School--"Balancing the First Amendment With Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education"

I am happy to pass along a call for papers to what looks like an exciting conference in the works at Penn State's Dickinson Law School.  Please consider attending and, better yet, submitting a proposal, whatever your views on the subject. The issues are current and quite contentious; the solutions will tend to shape the way we understand ourselves as a nation of people guided by fair  norms expressed through law.

The Conference concept note and proposal submission information follows:

Presentation: "Diversity in Legal Education: Considering the Hollow Spaces Between Speech and Action"

It was my great pleasure to participate on a great panel at Penn State Law recently. The panel, All in at Penn State Law: Addressing Diversity & Implicit Bias considered issues of diversity from a variety of distinct perspectives. It was organized by the Penn State Law Diversity Committee on March 16, 2017. The program was covered by Penn State's student newspaper, Daily Collegian (Katie Johnston, "Penn State Law hosts panel on diversity in legal education," The Daily Collegian March 16, 2017).

I spoke to issues of institutional implementation and accountability of diversity projects for law schools specifically and large research universities more generally. I started with a consideration of the 2010 ABA Report “Diversity in the Legal Profession: The Next Steps” especially as they relate to “Recommendations to Law Schools and the Academy (pp.17-25). This was used as a baseline for analysis. I then reflected on their consequences for Law Schools in light of the work of Penn State's Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force and their Reports of 2016 adopted by the Penn State University Faculty Senate in 2016.

The presentation PowerPoints may be accessed HERE.

The video of the presentation may be accessed HERE.

A summary of the presentation follows and may be downloaded HERE.

The American Law School: Crisis and Opportunities in the 21st Century

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

American legal education is in crisis--that crisis is driven not by conceptual decay but by markets. Changes in markets--for law students, for law school graduates, for the consumption of legal academy knowledge by lawyers and judges, have changed the systemic foundations of contemporary American legal education--its organization model, its curriculum, conceits as an academic discipline embedded "in the world." The crisis, then, challenges the foundations of the contemporary legal education model --in its conceptual, institutional, and political aspects. Does this suggest a death spiral for the current one size fits all model of U.S. legal education? Does it point to a counter-revolution in the trends of legal education reform, inviting a typical panic response--the "Return to “Eden” strategy of coping with crisis--or to radical change? And what does that mean for the now decades old effort to internationalize the U.S. curriculum?

The crisis takes its character from the the source of its challenge in markets. Admissions of JD candidates have been trending down. Traditional high prestige jobs are trending down as well or holding stable even as the pool of graduates grows. Markets are both shrinking and changing, but the changes to not register on those metrics through which rankings are calculated. In the near term class sizes have shrunk in the face of the pressure of ranking.This produces substantial downward pressure on revenue and panic. That panic has produced predictions that even high tier schools may fail, attacks on academic freedom and tenuret may become more common (and persuasive), faculty terminations may be required, and research and teaching rethought. There has been criticism of for-profit law schools and a sense that even as the most elite schools may thrive (with a lock on high prestige students and labor market access), the rest will not. Those that survive will do so only through substantial subsidies from central university funds.

It was my great privilege to speak to a group of Japanese academics about my sense of the nature of the emerging "crisis" in American legal education. My thanks to Professor Hideto Fukudome, Department of University Management and Policy Studies, University of Tokyo, for organizing the event. The PowerrPoints of that presentation, The American Law School: Crisis and Opportunities in the 21st Century, follow. They may also be accessed HERE.

Reflections on the "Crisis" in the Business of Legal Education and the Problem of the Conventional "Return to Eden" Strategy

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2015)

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) has just recently concluded its 2015 Annual Meeting. Like other field specific organization functions, the annual meeting provides a space where law faculty can meet to discuss interesting developments in law, showcase new scholarly work, and network.  And this year was no different in that respect.

But there was a difference.  For the last several years, the business of legal education has been under attack. (See here, here and here). And a weak economy, high entry costs and lower economic prospects has combined to substantially reduce law school applicants even as the number of law schools have expanded, the costs of operating law schools has increased as well. (See eg, here, and here).)   In the face of this criticism, there has been some push back as the legal academy seeks to defend its practices and culture--and to convince stakeholders of the value of the product it sells.  (See eg here and here).  But principal stakeholders have become more aggressive in seeking changes in the structure of legal education to suit their own tastes, including the American Bar Association (See, e.g., here), and senior judges (see e.g. here).

This post considers the consequences of the current challenges facinmg law schools, especially those operating within public universities.  It suggests the difficulties of the usual response to such market stress--contraction and a vain effort to recreate a past without stress (the "return to Eden" strategy) and suggest the contours of another and perhaps healthier approach.