Call for Papers--Constitutional Law Scholars Forum; American Constitution Society (28 Feb. 2020).

Thsi may of interest to some of you.

“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.

What is the Fundamental Task of Education?: Xi Jinping's Concept of 立德树人 [Cultivating People of Moral Character] and its Implementation Through Undergraduate University Reform in 教育部关于一流本科课程建设的实施意见 [Implementation Opinions of the Ministry of Education on the Construction of First-class Undergraduate Courses]

(Pix Credit: 兰资环学院教育实践透视立德树人工程 凝心聚力锻造思想政治教育 )

Education reform has been a priority of the Xi Jinping leadership for some time.  It is a central element of "new era" theory, which links economic, political. cultural and social renovation in a tight web that each contributes to a comprehensive expression of the "new China"  under the leadership of the Communist Party.  That "new China" is a fundamentally moral project.  It elaborates a core premise that China's further economic potential can be developed only in tandem economically potent precisely because of its transposition of core socialist moral values to the constriction of society and culture as well.  That, at least, is the theory. 

But this theory requires a powerful implementation mechanism.  And that mechanism is education. Under the current leadership that sort of education reform as been high on the agenda for a number of years (e.g., Focusing on Civic Education in China--The CCP's Ideological Work Comes to the Universities: 关于进一步加强和改进新形势下高校宣传思想工作的意见). The drivers have not changed much, but the goals are far better coordinated with the comprehensive reshaping of the political-economic m0del and its cultural basis in outlook, custom and behavior. While it may be difficult to re-form the minds of current generations, a vanguard party looks to the formation of future generations for the long term transformation of the social and political order in ways that stick. To that end education acquires a more ancient form--one that starts with the moral formation of the student as the basis on which information can be both created and disseminated.  Xi Jinping theory, when turned toward education and the socialization of the young within a morally specific trajectory of socialist modernization (the morally informed development of productive forces), informs not just the way in which students are instructed, but also the context and form of that instruction as well. 

It was perhaps with that in mind that Xi Jinping set about to elaborate the fundamental task of education (习近平这样阐释教育的根本任务 ["Cultivating People of Moral Character," Xi Jinping explains the fundamental task of education] Xinhua News Agency [March 18 2019]). What is the fundamental task of education? The answer 立德树人 [Cultivating People of Moral Character] (with thanks to Flora Sapio for the translation of this quite complex and subtle term).

The concept was derived from a variety of Xi Jinping's statements put forward in a variety of context and then woven together by the Xinhua News Agency for wide distribution. Despite its subtleties, the term is both straightforward and at the same time intimately connected to the the larger projects of Chinese Social Credit (with its foundation in integrity; see "Blacklists and Social Credit Regimes in China"), and of building a rule-of-law Socialist society in the "New Era" (grounded in the 12 Core Socialist Values [社会主义核心价值观]). It was with that in mind that Xi Jinping noted an objective to "Integrate the cultivation of moral character into all aspects of ideological and moral education, cultural knowledge education, and social practice education, and run through basic education, vocational education, and higher education. The discipline system, teaching system, teaching material system, and management system should revolve around this goal.""

From that pronouncement consolidated in March 2019, only a short time passed before the publication by the Ministry of Education of implementation guidance first targeted to undergraduate education institutions and is reflected in the 教育部关于一流本科课程建设的实施意见 [Implementation Opinions of the Ministry of Education on the Construction of First-class Undergraduate Courses].  The idea is to reshape education to suit the "New Era." To that end, education is understood first as a moral project within which it is possible to infuse the most forward looking approaches to the instruction in particular fields, all understood, of course, within the moral framework that shapes the educational project in the first place.  The object is to give content to and provide a disciplined and measurable delivery system for moral character education as overseen by the vanguard as the guardians of morals, ethics, and integrity.

(用故事和事实告诉学生人生哲理，形象生动，文字配画面增强说服力，把“大德育”化身为“小水滴”，改“大水漫灌”为“精准滴灌”。涉及的内容十分丰富，包括科学知识、感恩教育、名人典故、我的中国梦、感动中国、讲评时事、国家法律法规、生活常识、教育改革与发展、传统文化、职业素养、工匠精神等，“个个都充满正能量”。"It tells students the philosophy of life with stories and facts. The image is vivid, the text is enhanced with persuasiveness, and the "great moral education" is transformed into "small water droplets". The flood irrigation is “precise drip irrigation”. The content involved is very rich, including scientific knowledge, grateful education, celebrity allusions, my Chinese dream, moving China, commenting on current affairs, national laws and regulations, common sense of life, education reform and development, traditional culture, professionalism, craftsmanship, etc., Everyone is full of positive energy."兰资环学院教育实践透视 supra.).

The idea is profound, but not unique to China (see, e.g.,Education to Meet the Labor Needs of Markets--Cuba Changes its Approach to University Education).  It reflects a certain all around approach to education that sees it intimately tied to both moral projects, and to the project of the perfectibility of humanity within the framework in which instruction acquires both meaning and direction--its rationality.  The connection between education, labor markets and political-societal socialization runs deep in the West as well. In this sense there is much that ties this approach to that of Pope John Paul II in the encyclical Fides et Ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason (discussed in Fides et Ratio: Religion and Law in Legal Orders Suffused by Faith) ("This is to say that with the light of reason human beings can know which path to take, but they can follow that path to its end, quickly and unhindered, only if with a rightly tuned spirit they search for it within the horizon of faith. Therefore, reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way." Fides et Ratio ¶ 16). 

The core pronouncements of Xi Jinping follow (in the original Chinese and with crude English translation. The important Implementation Opinions of the Ministry of Education on the Construction of First-class Undergraduate Courses (教育部关于一流本科课程建设的实施意见 ) also follow in English and Chinese., including the important annex on implementation (“双万计划”国家级一流本科课程 推荐认定办法).

AAUP Announces the publication of Volume 10 of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom and Call for Papers--“Academic Freedom on the Managed Campus"

This from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP):

We are pleased to announce the publication of Volume 10 of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. The journal features recent scholarship on academic freedom and its relation to contemporary crises of austerity, shared governance, tenure, and collective bargaining. This year's contributors draw connections between the multiple frequencies of bullying present on our campuses and the principles and practice of academic freedom and shared governance.

The volume’s eleven essays address a wide range of topics, including the use of discourses of civility and student evaluations of teaching to bully faculty, threats from on and off campus to the academic freedom of faculty of color, and the troubling legacies of historical infringements on academic freedom and shared governance. Follow the links to each article in the table of contents below or access the complete volume at https://www.aaup.org/JAF10.

We are also excited to share a new call for papers, “Academic Freedom on the Managed Campus," for the eleventh volume of the journal, scheduled for publication in September 2020.
—Rachel Ida Buff, Faculty Editor

The Journal of Academic Freedom is supported by funding from the AAUP Foundation.

The table of Contents with links follows below.

5th Business and Human Rights Young Researchers Summit; Geneva, Switzerland: April 2 – 3, 2020

5^th Business and Human Rights Young Researchers Summit

Geneva, Switzerland: April 2 – 3, 2020

The Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights at Geneva University’s Geneva School of Economics and Management, theInstitute for Business Ethics at University of St. Gallen, the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and the Business and Human Rights Journal (BHRJ) are pleased to announce the 5^th Business and Human Rights Young Researchers Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, taking place on April 2-3, 2020.

The Summit will bring together approximately 10-15 excellent PhD students and early post-doc researchers (cut-off is one year after graduation) who engage in research in the business and human rights field. The objective is for participants to present their research project in an interdisciplinary, collaborative workshop setting. Scholars from all disciplines are invited to apply including ethics, law, business, and global affairs. Submissions from non-law disciplines are particularly welcome. The papers should outline research-in-progress and must be unpublished at the time of presentation. We encourage submissions from all parts of the world and strive for gender balance in our selection.

For further information on the BHR Young Researchers Summit and on how to join the BHR Young Researchers Network visit - https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/young-researchers-summit or https://iwe.unisg.ch/en/initiativen-und-veranstaltungen/bhr/about-yrs.

To apply, please submit an abstract of no more than 600 words to youngresearcherssummit@gmail.com. Please include your name, affiliation, contact information, and curriculum vitae. For questions please contact Berit Knaak atyoungresearcherssummit@gmail.com. 

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is November 4, 2019. Candidates whose submissions are selected for participation in the Summit will be notified no later than December 20, 2019. Full papers will be due on March 9, 2020 and will be distributed to all participants for review before the workshop. Each participant is expected to formally comment on one other paper.

From the American Association of University Professors--A Rich Collection of Articles and Reports from its Summer 2019 Bulletin

The Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors is published annually as the summer issue of Academe. This year's Bulletin features academic freedom and tenure investigative reports, college and university governance investigative reports, a report on the assault on gender and gender studies, a statement on dual enrollment, and annual reports and other business documents. Follow the links in this email or read the entire issue at https://www.aaup.org/issue/summer-2019-bulletin.

 

Links follow: 

 

The Abusive University Administrator--Unfettered Discretion in the University and What the "Census Case" May Teach Us About Abuse

(Pix source HERE)

Those of you who follow my academic blog, Law at the End of the Day, have seen recent posting of PowerPoints through which I tried to synthesize the essence of the sub-systems that together make up the U.S. legal system.  In the process I have tried to capture for foreign lawyers the essence of the core values of American ideologies (of fairness and other baseline political principles), which are inscribed in quite different ways in the law.

One of the areas that struck my students as most curious was that of the ideologies and practice around administrative regulation.  The idea of discretion as a legal tool (outside of dictatorships and Marxist Leninist States) seemed curious. They might have treated those as political acts rather than the application of law. More curious still was the way that only recently, the Supreme Court reinforced a set of core principles through which the courts would review and if necessary overturn discretionary decisionmaking that appears to be arbitrary, capricious, or a hidden pretense.  They found it interesting to see the way that such principled constraints on exercises of discretion, even when undertaken by officials holding the highest appointed offices, could bve used to undermine important policy choices made at the highest levels of state. 

The case, of course, was the "Census Question" case: Department of Commerce v. New York, U.S. Supreme Court No. 18-966 Slip op. (Decided June 27, 2019). The PowerPoints may be accessed here.  And

What struck me more as I sought to lecture through this a as matter of public law--was the way that such constraints might well exposes the laww-less-ness of private administrators, and especially those in the academy.  Not to say that they are born bad; but merely to suggest, as the Supreme Court has just done in relation to the Secretary of Commerce, that no mere instrumentality of the administrative apparatus--public or private--ought to exist within an environment in which the core principles of fairness built into American law appear absent. 

This post considers the great principles of checks on administrative discretion and the principles underlying them (hopefully written simply and not for lawyers).  It then poses the question: to what extent do the great role models of the American Republic; to what extent to those institutions which put themselves out as the forms of social, political, and economic organization that embraces wholeheartedly the core values of this nation; to what extent to the people in control of that apparatus feel the weight of responsibility for their discretionary decisionmaking reinforced by principles and outside robust checks? 

I pose a null hypothesis--university administrators have no real constraints on the exercise of their discretion within the university that is effective, reliable, fair, or readily available to those against whom discretion is exercised. "The null hypothesis, H0 is the commonly accepted fact; it is the opposite of the alternate hypothesis. Researchers work to reject, nullify or disprove the null hypothesis. Researchers come up with an alternate hypothesis, one that they think explains a phenomenon, and then work to reject the null hypothesis." (See here). I would dearly love to see that null hypothesis disproven--and not by incantation from above. 

The Power of Charity and the University--A Pleasured Patron and Obliging Nomenklatura Model of University Governance

(Pix credit: Corporate Wolves in Academic Sheepskins, or, a Billionaire’s Raid on the University of Tulsa, published June 18 in The Nation )

I had observing the quite emotional battle at the University of Tulsa that appears to pit the old ideals of a university against the realities of universities as businesses. That battle is raging across American academia and touches all aspects of its operation.  I have noted its particular effects in the way that universities consume their graduate students and student athletes (See, e.g., Consequences of the Growing Divide Between the Ideal of the University and its Reality: Thoughts on the Unionization of Student Labor (Graduate Students and Athletes) in this Age of the Learning Factory). Universities cling to the ancient ideals long after it has faded from living memory because its consumers and sponsors find value in the ideal detached from whatever reality is then offered by way of "application." That universities engage in this behavior ought not to surprise, especially as these institutions have been urged to adopt the outlooks and ideologies--the practices--of those businesses into which they mean to project their graduates. Like a "White Christmas" in Miami, the ideal can be consciously embraced even as the reality around it makes even the pretense of attainment laughable. 

The real issue has now shifted from even this ridiculous attempt to market the past as present to a more important one--if the university is no longer to be itself, the question becomes what ought it to be.  There have been two models competing for status as orthodox institutional form. The first s the model of the for profit business corporation. That model is appealing if only because it s ends are all bent to making money--and money is what university administrators are now trained to chase--if only for the best things that it can buy for those from whom fees and tuition (and donations later) are extracted.  The problem is that the university does not resemble a business enterprise culturally or in its operation. While it produces things (degrees,for example) it is better understood as managing people toward objectives and then placing them. The model, then, is one that is more like an administrative agency in a state bureaucracy, than of a business in a purely (of course there is no such thing as pure anything anymore) markets based environment.

The successful university administrator is one that is both fungible and anonymous.  They are cogs in a bureaucratic machine the logic of which must be furthered.They are risk averse and exercise their discretion to minimize risk and manage compliance with those rules and cultures that conform to benchmark.  They become a closed circle in which innovation is the ability to better mimic everyone else (that everyone, of course is hierarchically arranged as universities adhere to a caste culture every bit as rigid as those of ancient societies). With university administrators as a modern Western version of the old nomenklaturas, then it appears that the model most compatible with a university that no longer can afford to be itself(the old ideal),must be that of the charitable foundation. It follows that charitable foundations--institutionalized patrons, would also dominate their stakeholding classes and serve not just as a source of imitation but as the institution most likely to have influence over university administrative (and ultimately substantive) cultures.  One has seen the effects of this in other contexts (e.g., here, and here).  But the control of the ethos of a university is indeed something quite new and remarkable. Thus it is not the corporatization of the university that ought to be feared--it is the conversion of the university into a foundation overseen by a private sector regulatory apparatus in which the core administrative values of ability, risk aversion, compliance and conformity to orthodox views and institutional objectives, narrowly drawn, become the lodestars of academic culture. 

Jacob Howland has stepped into this battlefield with a great deal of vigor and much to say.  His focus ison the University of Tulsa as the great exemplar of change--and in his view not for the better. His passionate original essay, Storm Clouds Over Tulsa, was published in City Journal and appeared 17 April 2019.  It was reproduced along with my own brief comments  here (A Report From the Front Lines of the Transformation of the American University: Jacob Howland, "Storm Clouds Over Tulsa"). is reproduced (without the embedded pictures) below. 

Professor Howland continues his archeology of the university necropolis.  His current essay, Corporate Wolves in Academic Sheepskins, or, a Billionaire’s Raid on the University of Tulsa, published June 18 in The Nation magazine, delves deeper into the case study that is the University of Tulsa.  Whether one agrees or not, the story he tells must be necessarily considered.  It follows below. 

New From Academe--The Magazione of the AAUP; Academic Freedom and Free Speech

I am happy to pass along the table of contents of the features in the latest issue of Academe--the Journal of the American Association of University Professors. 

FEATURES

Knowledge for the Common Good
A plenary presentation from the AAUP’s 2019 annual conference.
By Joan W. Scott

Political Interference with Academic Freedom and Free Speech at Public Universities
The threat of governmental suppression of academic inquiry.By Gene Nichol

Rebuilding "Iowa Nice" in Shared Governance: From Sanction to Collaboration
A faculty senate committee works to address governance concerns.
By Sandra Daack-Hirsch, Frank Durham, Russell Ganim, Edward Gillan, and Justine Kolker

Of particular interestare the remarks of Jopan Scott, which are reproduced below.  Joan W. Scott is professor emerita in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She is a long-standing member and former chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Concurso Estudiantil Jorge Pérez- López 2019/ 2019 Graduate and Undergraduate Student Paper Award Competition

El Comité de ASCE del Concurso Estudiantil Jorge Pérez-López está aceptando nominaciones para el concurso del año 2019. Un panel de expertos juzgará a los trabajos sometidos basado en su relevancia, originalidad, calidad, contribución, y la claridad de su presentación. Los trabajos no deben tener como coautor a un instructor, profesor o asistente de enseñanza. Como mínimo, todos los trabajos deben incluir una declaración de la tesis, presentar pruebas o datos que la apoyan, no pasarse de 5.000 palabras a doble espacio, y estar escrito siguiendo uno de los estilos académicos estándares.

ASCE Student Award Committee is accepting nominations for the 2019 Jorge Pérez-López Student Award Competition. A panel of scholars will judge all submissions on the basis of relevance, originality, quality, contribution, and clarity of presentation. Papers should not be co-authored with an instructor or teaching assistant. At a minimum, all papers must outline a thesis statement, present evidence or data supporting it, confine to 5000 words double-spaced length, and follow one of the standard academic writing and citations styles.

More information below.