Eskridge v. UVA Law: Prominent Professor Testifies That He Was Denied Tenure Because of His Sexual Orientation
The University of Virginia Law School, and legal academia more generally, have been rocked recently by a controversy involving a leading law professor and claims of anti-gay animus.
William N. Eskridge Jr. — currently the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School, where we had great good fortune of having him as a professor — testified last month before Congress in support of the pending Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA). ENDA would prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the workplace. In explaining the need for ENDA, Professor Eskridge made reference to his own career, testifying that “I was denied tenure at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985 based in part on my sexual orientation.” You can, and should, read his complete testimony here (opens as a Word document).
The controversy has, of course, reverberated throughout the blogosphere. See, e.g., the UVA Law Blog (including 40+ comments, many of them quite insightful); Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports (here and here); and The Faculty Lounge. The UVA Law Blog also reprints a Virginia Law Weekly article from January 1986 about the Eskridge tenure denial (which was strongly opposed by students; if you’ve been lucky enough to have Bill Eskridge as a teacher, this should not be a surprise).
We reached out to both Professor Eskridge and UVA Law School. We received written statements from Professor Eskridge and from Dean Paul G. Mahoney.
Their statements, plus a comprehensive collection of links, appear below.
Here is Professor Eskridge’s statement, in full. It incorporates the statement submitted to Above the Law by Dean Mahoney (and previously posted by Professor Leiter), so we have not reprinted Dean Mahoney’s statement separately.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM N. ESKRIDGE, GARVER PROFESSOR, YALE LAW SCHOOL
On September 23, 2009, I delivered (brief) oral and (lengthy) written testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor. I recounted my own tenure case at the University of Virginia. [My written testimony, link here, pp. 83-93.]
My claim was that the tenure decision in the autumn of 1985 was tainted by legal improprieties. I identified three kinds of improprieties:
As I recount in my written testimony, the result of this process was a faculty vote ratifying the tainted committee recommendation that I not receive tenure but be given a short-term contract (my written testimony, p. 86). Based upon my experience with the committee chair, conversations with committee members, and the misrepresentations in the committee report (which I secured in 1986), I left Virginia for Georgetown.
In conclusion, I testified that “the state had discriminated against me at least in part because of anti-gay animus, and its own documents indicated that there was not a rational basis at work; I was lied to and denied the process long established by the law school’s own procedures and probably also guaranteed by the Due Process Clause; and I was probably also being disciplined for various intellectual positions I had taken on matters of law school policy, including my leadership in a faculty motion for the law school to divest itself of investments in South Africa during apartheid, and matters of legal theory, such as my critique of leave-markets-alone law and economics, based upon cognitive psychology.” (My written testimony, p. 91.)
Dean Paul Mahoney, the current dean at Virginia, recently posted a reply to my testimony. Here is the version I have seen:
Professor Eskridge testified that he was denied tenure in 1985 because of his sexual orientation. He was not actually denied tenure, but was deferred for future consideration, a common procedure at the time. The faculty wished to see the fruits of his promising, but nascent, scholarly interest in legislation before granting tenure. His subsequent scholarship in that area was highly successful and influential, and he would certainly have received tenure at Virginia had he not resigned to accept a lateral offer from Georgetown.People who were on our faculty at the time of these events deny that Professor Eskridge’s sexual orientation played any role. Many were unaware of it. And they emphatically deny the specific conversations Professor Eskridge recounts.
In my 19 years on the Virginia faculty, I have seen none of the prejudice that Professor Eskridge alleges. On the contrary, relations among straight, gay and lesbian professors have always been warm and supportive. Virginia prides itself on a friendly, collegial, welcoming environment and remains completely committed to equality, civility and mutual respect.
Dean Mahoney joined the faculty in or about 1990, five years or so after the events described above. [Ed. note: Dean Mahoney confirmed this to ATL: “I did not overlap with Professor Eskridge. He resigned in 1988 and I arrived in 1990.”] It is not clear that he reviewed the detailed record of the case when he issued this reply.
Dean Mahoney’s reply is mistaken as to a number of specific points, and I’d welcome a conversation with him where contemporaries or I can provide written or other evidence that (1) the committee’s report was dismissive of my legislation work and explicitly belittled the excessive “detail” in my “treatment of rules and maxims of statutory interpretation”; (2) there was no chance that the faculty would have reconsidered or granted tenure based upon the legislation or any other work, as I was told at the time by senior faculty and at least one member of the committee; (3) relations between the law school and gay professors have not “always” been warm and supportive. The University of Virginia School of Law’s culture in the 1980s was the culture of Justice Lewis Powell, the Justice from Richmond, Virginia who (erroneously) thought he had never met a “homosexual” and who was willing to join the Court’s opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which rejected a privacy challenge to the state’s power to make consensual “homosexual sodomy” a felony with a mandatory one year sentence.
My larger point of disagreement with Dean Mahoney rests upon my characterization of the lack of professionalism displayed by the committee and its chair. Did the committee inform me of the written guarantee that I had to respond to their criticisms in person before the committee issued its report to the faculty? Did the chair engage in the tirade that I describe? I can describe that tirade in detail; if the chair of committee claims that he followed the procedures described above or denies that he engaged in this tirade, he is lying to Dean Mahoney.
To be sure, Dean Mahoney is in a tough spot. He was not there in 1985, and it can hardly be surprising that he would deny impropriety in a “he said, he ‘emphatically’ said” situation. There is a smoking gun, however, and it is in writing: the committee’s report. The report is filled with factual misrepresentations and fabrications; its few evaluations include the dismissive attitude toward rules and canons of statutory interpretation that refute Dean Mahoney’s view that I “would certainly have received tenure at Virginia” based upon legislation work.
In my written testimony, I provide a detailed account of the committee’s opening salvo against my article on home mortgages in the Virginia Law Review. My argument was that consumers were taking on too much risk with adjustable rate mortgages in the 1980s, and I suggested a number of reforms that would ameliorate this problem, which I characterized as serious but hard to solve. From the beginning of its report, the committee misrepresented my arguments and my proposed solutions (my written testimony, p. 88). I’d be happy to work with Dean Mahoney personally or with a committee of neutral scholars, to determine how serious and pervasive the committee’s misrepresentations were. If the committee chair submitted a libelous report to the faculty, is that not evidence of bad faith? That the chair was covering up his own misconduct when he “emphatically denied” the tirade to the dean?
Let me close on a note of likely agreement with Dean Mahoney. Setting aside the dispute whether the School of Law was justified in its treatment of my case, we both might agree that the result was lose-lose: Virginia lost a top teacher and capable scholar, and I lost the opportunity to teach as a tenured professor at the school where both of my grandfathers received their law degrees.
Statement of Professor William N. Eskridge
[U.S. Congress - House Committee on Education and Labor (via hunter of justice)]
Did Homophobia at the Law School Cause a Professor to Jet? [UVA Law Blog]
Dean Mahoney Responds to Eskridge’s Allegations [UVA Law Blog]
Law Weekly: “Prof. Stanley Henderson, who chairs the Appointments Committee, said student criticism of recent tenure recommendations ‘hurts’” [Virginia Law Weekly via UVA Law Blog]
Homophobia at UVA law school, circa 1985 [hunter of justice]
Yale’s Eskridge Tells Congress He Was Denied Tenure at Virginia Because of Sexual Orientation Discrimination [Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports]
Virginia Dean Mahoney’s Statement on Professor Eskridge’s Allegations [Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports]
Eskridge Alleges Not Being Given Tenure by UVA Law Based in Part on Sexual Orientation [Workplace Prof Blog]
Spit, “faggot,” and a tenure denial [The Faculty Lounge]
Letter to the Editor: Community Must Be Supportive of All Students [Virginia Law Weekly]
(162) Comments
Comments
Not first by any chance?
I've been on Facebook all morning.
Unemployed '09
Wow - I rock!
- 1
Lat
You are getting almost as bad as Elie. Can we go a whole day without some racial or homo discrimination nonsense? Get off of your soapbox and realise that minority homo judges are raping prisoners out there.
Yeah, Facebook is so useful in finding legal jobs.
Good point, 5. But I've forced myself to adopt a "no milfhunter.com before lunch" policy, so there you go.
2
This is actually a very interesting controversy for those who have the patience to follow it.
6 clearly discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation
Even if this is true, which it might be, you have to admit that in 1985 many schools were like this. Give the nerdy frat boys a break at UVA and stop picking on their school for once!.
Prof. Brian Leiter's take on this:
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2009/10/virginia-dean-mahoneys-comment-on-professor-eskridges-allegations.html
9 - According to Eskridge's full testimony, even GULC was better:
"After recovering from the shock of tenure denial at Virginia, I moved on to the Georgetown University Law Center, an eminent Roman Catholic law school, where I was able to be openly gay and where my scholarship flourished, in part because Georgetown had just settled an anti-discrimination lawsuit and was more open to its LGBT students and faculty than Virginia was."
What a misleading lead-in -- "rocked recently by a controversy" surrounding events that happened 24 years ago? WTF? Hey, maybe you can offer up a breathless post about HLS's controversial Jewish quota.
Last week there was an astonishing expose in the Chicago Sun-Times on the selection of judges in Cook County and there is no mention here. A professor complains that he was discriminated against for being gay -- IN THE 80s -- and that's newsworthy? C'mon, man. I mean, is this a legal blog anymore?
And Georgetown is a Catholic school, so you would expect it not to be super-pro-gay.
Huh? Next an African American will explain how he was discriminated against in 1963 to support affirmative action legislation.
12 - Here at UVA it has been a big big deal.
If you don't like ATL, then don't read it. It sounds like you can get lots of exciting coverage of state-court judges through your local paper.
C'mon, are you really surprised that ATL is covering this?
It is perfect fodder for "a legal tabloid." Two elite law schools? Check. A gay angle? Check. Congressional testimony? Check.
Personally I find this much more interesting than coverage of TTT state judges in Cook Country (which everyone knows is a cesspool of corruption).
15 - if it's a big deal at UVA, I'm sure you're getting exciting coverage through your student paper.
I might as well ask if UVA law school is accredited by the American Bar Association. Somehow, I don't think it is, popped collars notwithstanding.
ddd - rama
It is absolutely absurd to deny that anti-gay animus at law schools like UVA may have played a large role in various decisions, and, in Professor Eskridge's case, probably did.
As Professor Eskridge correctly notes, the genteel culture of anti-gay bigotry that was the hallmark of Justice Powell was the dominant attitude of the time at "moderate" institutions like UVA (to say nothing of the more rampant anti-gay bigotry that flourished at less "moderate" places).
Discrimination against gays in the south? Say it ain't so, you mo!
UVA and Georgetown don't impress me.
Don't forget the Aaron Charney case. Even white-shoe institutions like S&C and UVA Law can have anti-gay discrimination:
http://www.abovethelaw.com/aaron_charney/
20,
Please substantiate your assertion that "anti-gay bigotry" was dominant at Virginia Law in the 1980s.
I once heard Eskridge completely demolish Maggie Gallagher (of National Organization for Marriage fame) on NPR in a discussion of the future of gay marriage. I have never respected a law professor more than I did listening to Eskridge rebut every one of Gallagher's points shame her and her movement repeatedly and forcefully.
If true, I think UVA should be deprived of accreditation by the ABA. That ought to reduce the number of Southern good ol' boy lawyers that are flooding the market.
I don't think anyone is saying that U.Va. today bears any hostility to gay faculty. (That would be hard case to make, in any event, given the prominent gay scholars to have received tenure and leadership positions there since the incident involving Eskridge.)
For anyone who went to U.Va., and knows the players still at U.Va., it is a fascinating story. The committee chair (Stan Henderson) accused of standing in Eskridge's office and hocking goobers on him while shouting out slurs is - normally, at least - one of the most kindly, mild-mannered professors ever to have taught at U.Va.. I'm not saying it didn't happen, or couldn't have happened, but I am saying that it must have involved some astounding turns of events to have happened the way he says it did.
The stronger view seems to be that the law and econ crowd took down Eskridge, who was up for tenure after only three years, who had split his scholarship among a variety of fields, who had published an article using psychological insights to criticize market based analysis, and who had not yet published what was to be his reputation making work. Homophobic epithets may have been shouted, but it was - even by Eskridge's tellying - after the fact.
I am, however, waiting to hear what Chicago Dean Saul Levmore has to say about this. He was one of the law and econ guys on the committee that deferred Eskridge, and he can tell us whether his vote was based on homophobia (I doubt it very much) or on not thinking that Eskridge's work to that date merited tenure.
What's a bear gotta do to get a taxi 'round here?
26 - If you want to "to reduce the number of Southern good ol' boy lawyers that are flooding the market," then start with Duke, voted America's "Douchiest Law School":
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/09/duke_the_douchiest_law_school.php
I shit on the quad last year after the softball tourney. Suck it, UVA!
BCLaw 2L
If you're browsing Facebook instead of searching hard for a job, WAYSA?
I can assure you that no one at UVA, other than the kid who writes his blog and the weirdos who comment anonymously on it, know or care about a controversy that occurred before many of the current students were even born.
Stop plugging your blog, Andy. And Lat, run a decent blog and stop stealing ledes from law students who cannot even bother to spell check.
Misleading headline: "Eskridge v. UVA Law" suggests there's an actual lawsuit here, which there isn't and wasn't. Looks like Eskridge wants a few minutes in the sun without having to answer to a jury who would call BS on him. Typical "discrimination" fodder in this day and age, and every bit as disgusting.
Damn.
I should've tried to teach at UVA.
- Dr. Thio
Eskridge was prescient on this:
"In my written testimony, I provide a detailed account of the committee’s opening salvo against my article on home mortgages in the Virginia Law Review. My argument was that consumers were taking on too much risk with adjustable rate mortgages in the 1980s, and I suggested a number of reforms that would ameliorate this problem, which I characterized as serious but hard to solve."
While it is hard for fair minded people to grasp, the South is still the South--and then there is the rest of the Country.
Yankees, Californians, New Yorkers, gays, blacks, Jews--it is all the same to died in the wool Southerners--who are still pissed off about losing the Civil War. Therefore, what do you expect?
There is a reason that two of the primary organizations that track hate groups—the Jewish Defense League and the Southern Poverty Law Center—originated in the South.
The only thing that surprises me about this story is that UVA hired the professor in the first instance. (I suspect that he was not “out” at the time.)
What what?
can we please have a day without irrelevant gay legal news articles?
This is less of a "gay" story and more of a "legal academia" story (which is why Leiter has picked it up).
38 = UVA student
Doesn't UVA have a gay former Dean?
33 -
Agreed. Eskridge is really just going for "minutes in the sun" here. Little does he realize that once these 15 minutes of fame are over, no one will remember who the hell he is. Personally, I've never heard of this Eskridge fool. What has he ever accomplished?
41 - Yes, it is strongly rumored that the previous Dean is gay. No one knows for sure, but again, no one really cares about the profs' private lives. And FYI, he's back this year from sabbatical and his classes are huuuugely popular. Maxed out in hours after registration opened. UVA Law gets a bum rap, IMO.
42 - Eskridge is the nation's foremost scholar of statutory interpretation / legislation.
You don't get an endowed chair at Yale Law School as a nobody.
sounds like UVA really screwed him in the butt.
You wanna do me in the butt? In the butt.
I said you wanna do me in the butt? In the butt.
I'm delicate like a flower
36, you have no idea what you are talking about. First of all Virginia is basically the north now with the expansion of the federal goverment in DC. Second, the Union army and the North was much more hostile to the Jews during the Civil War. The number 3 guy in the confederacy was a jewish new orleans lawyer. and one out of 3 jews during the civil war lived in Louisiana. Meanwhile, race riots between the Irish and blacks ravaged NYC. Although, NYC supported the South because of its slave trading interests.
man if only i weren't a straight white male from NY, then every time i wasn't hired i could BITCH LIKE A FUCKIN BABY. this guy should (and probably will) go suck a c*ck.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
47
There were more than 3 jews in the civil war.
48 - Thank you for that insightful commentary. You are a credit to the legal profession.
This website is gay.
THe New York City Council voted to support the Southern rebellion because of the city's ties to the slave trade. Even back then NYC put money over all else. It makes sense because the Dutch founded the island to be a trading port not a place for religious worship. The anti-slave movement came from Christians in Boston. Liberals don't like admitting that.
lol at using something that happened almost 25 years ago -- and which is apparently not irrefutably driven by animus towards gays -- as the basis for this legislation.
54 - Fair enough. But the basic point - some people are discriminated against in the workplace because they are gay - is still true.
There are currently openly gay faculty at UVA -- which both students and faculty agree are some of the best at the school.
Sutherland is NO OFFERING people RIGHT NOW -- Cover THAT!
49 = Comment of the day. Please re-state in avatar form. I suggest this image, maybe flipped 180º?
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/blog/juiyinjong/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/helen_lovejoy_symp.jpg
UVA is very fratty. This doesn't surprise me.
56 - Send it in to tips - tips at abovethelaw dot com.
54 - Well, the intent behind the legislation is meeting grievances that have previously been incapable of being addressed. So testifying about a grievance in the 80s, for which you had no means of relief, seems like a good justification for passage of the Act.
Seriously, please read before you comment. And for god's sake, stop typing "lol"
If anyone still thinks that liberals and "minorities" support freedom, here's the proof that they don't.
This is silly. Gay UVA faculty members have been given tenure and promoted to leadership roles from the 70s (maybe before) through the present.
It is unfair that the minorities and immigrants will bare the brunt of this economic downturn but it is the reality. Populist rage broils over.
where's the proof, 61?
62 - I agree that this was really about a prof being denied tenure because of philosophical differences about legal academe. It is unfortunate that professors' personal biases factored into this.
Kindly let me mention my disdain for politics in general, especially the two-party system, and the fact that if anything I consider myself a confused "moderate" if anything. Now that I've said that, I would like to say that I am one of the luckiest law students alive to have had Bill Eskridge as my Civil Procedure professor at NYU (he teaches once a year there, or he did while I was a student). Professsor Eskridge is my ABSOLUTE favorite professor. He made it a joy to come to class three days a week and was able to teach both what we needed to know about Civ Pro and at the same time, about his own experience of discrimination and how that has shaped his legal career, without forcing his opinions on anyone. He is an absolute delight in the classroom and out (he made it a point to try to lunch at least once during the course with each group of students who invited him). I had Bill in Fall 2004, and his class remains the most profound experience of my three years at NYU. Even though I got an A- and not an A. BILL, YOU ROCK --KLS
31, see my clarifying post at 5.
2
Sorry, make that 6. It's been a long day.
2
66, What did you have to do to get that A-? And nobody cares what your initials are. Stop kissing a^& or sucking c&^k as the case may be
64, people who believe in freedom do not enact laws that force people/companies to do business with people they do not want to under the guise of "anti-discrimination" laws.
Would somebody please volunteer to douche Mystal's ass, please?
The Children
60, lol at your anti-lol bias. i want legislation!
Thank goodness somebody is FINALLY doing something about anti-gay bias at law schools. Those poor law school gays are completely helpless out there.
Always amused when people accused of bigotry (or speaking on behalf of institutions accused of bigotry) deny animus: "No, dear, we would KNOW if we were prejudiced against you, and we WERE NOT. That slur was a term of endearment, or merely ironic, or ... WHAT slur?"
66 is right. I had Eskridge at Yale. Great, great professor.
Does Eskridge pitch or catch?
76
He pitches; you catch.
Seriously? Another gay post? Is this the Lambda blog now?
70: of course prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is impinging on people's freedom, you dumb fuck. So is prohibiting rape, murder and fraud.
77-Remember when in the 80s liberals said everyone was going to get AIDS. Nope, it is pretty much a gay disease. It is a dirty way of having sex. Hopefully, Eskridge does pitch. I hope he doesn't have AIDS. - 76
Eskridge needs to drop a "Yale bitc!!es!!!!!!!!"
Eskridge has no reason to lie. The UVA bigots do.
I didn't realize that law school professors engaged in the exact same shenanigans as partners working to discredit associates. This is very embarrassing.
this blog sucks.
62,
I know of a law firm that made one black dude partner. Because of this, said firm can never be accused of having even one biased attorney.
Your logic stinks.
84 - Then don't read it. That really is the best answer to every complaint.
David,
This your Mom here.
You should date nice asian girl, stop think about man.
No sleep with man, David. You good boy. Stop making blog so gay.
-Mom
79, nice that you needed to resort to name calling. Turning down someone for a date might hurt their feelings. Should that be made illegal too? I'm glad to see that like most liberals, you don't believe in freedom.
I would simply add that I too had Professor Eskridge at a school not Yale, and that he was also my favorite prof. of all time. Based on that semester, I can tell you he is someone with nothing to prove and nothing to gain by making stuff up.
In fact, he testifies before Congress regularly, and has everything he publishes read by at least two of the currently-sitting Justices. Indeed, Breyer gives a shout out to him in the intro to his book on interpretation. He has his considerable creditability to lose by making stuff up, and I just don't see him risking that through fabrications.
"There are currently openly gay faculty at UVA"
Oh really? Who, besides a quasi-closeted and only rumored-about former dean? And don't give me "it's not right to post their names"—if they're actually OUT, it's already public information and no different from saying "Clarence Thomas is black."
80—I hope to God you're being facetious. HIV/AIDS is not a "gay disease" and that attitude belongs back with the first Reagan administration.
Lat, the other week a girlfriend in our group had sex with a gay guy (who decided to turn "straight" for the night). The gay guy was pos and has been for the past 15 years.
The fact that she was ho'in notwithstanding, is the above behavior representative of all gays?
Too bad Eskridge doesn't wield any academic clout - otherwise this would be newsworthy.
A judge told me you can't catch the virus as long as you on the down-low.
Alabama Parolee
91 - most gays disclose HIV status - then have sex.
91
I've had affairs with lesbians. What does that make me?
88: Why don't you read ENDA, you dumb fuck? It prohibits such discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation only in the employment context, just like Title VII does for race, gender and so on. You can still turn down anyone for a date because of whatever criteria and you can still discriminate in just about every other facet of your life, as well, YOU DUMB FUCK. Know what you're talking about before you post, please.
95 - spot on parallel
95 - props to all my boys who have sex with HIV positive lesbians.
Why be scared.
95 - props to all my boys who have sex with HIV positive lesbians.
Why be scared?
98-
Dumbass. Lesbians have the lowest amounts of HIV of any group. Guess why? Most of them don't get dick.
100 - Do you get dick?
100 - the appropriate parallel is sex with HIV pos lesbians.
Please brush up on LSAT skills.
No, I don't, thank you. But I do get cool lipstick dykes while you are stuck with that blow up doll in the back of your closet in your efficiency.
And my friends are not averse to sharing other women.
K, thanks for playing.
103 speaks the truth. He's shared 4 of his past 5 girlfriends with me.
96, you still haven't explained why people have a "right" to a job. Why should private employers be forced to not discriminate?
105 thinks that not discriminating on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientations in decisions to hire means that you MUST hire someone just because he or she is black, a woman or gay.
105 could sorely use five minutes with an employment discrimination course outline.
105 is an idiot.
Case closed.
You see, when homosexual themes guide the world's behavior, people start to love themselves - not others and men turn to women (devolving from men to metrosexuals to gays eventually) and women turn into, in corresponding fashion, men.
Problem is, both want to be powerful and be men, yet neither have any balls - which leads to the "one love" that Satan pushes us towards - with evil the ultimate objective.
But you can't get to "evil" unless you deceive people - the devil will be "sweet" and deceive (thus the push for everyone to love with no rules, rampant fornication, immorality, "freedom" - but in truth, this debauchery leads to the following: 6% of children born out of wedlock in 1950 - 45% of children born out of wedlock in 2008).
One step closer hell.
Need proof of a conspiracy? Watch "Eyes Wide Shut" - the initiated know what that is about - perhaps some of you know what I'm talking about - for others, suffice it to say that the movie depicts a Satanic mass (chanting the Lord's Prayer in reverse).
Good to know how stupid you all are. Or, as I like to say, how you all live with your "Eyes Wide Shut."
88: Commercial relationships and personal relationships ARE NOT THE SAME THING, you imbecile.
107 = Fred Phelps. Please moderate.
107 comments and no quip from the 80's Guy??? This is your post bra!
I'd much rather fuck a cool lipstick dyke than be stuck with a blow up doll like the Fred Phelps imitation poster.
Just sayin'.
Problem with "cool lipstick dyke" is that their cooter usually smells.
107, it's too late. You've already caught teh ghey. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone. Go ahead and marry some 20-year-old beard from West Virginia and have six kids. Wear your short-sleeve shirt, your dark tie, your Dwight Schrute glasses; go to church twice a week and give money to Focus on the Family. Homeschool your children, teach them that the dinosaurs died in the Flood. Your longing for the "one love" will only grow stronger with time. Find a glory hole and explore the one love. Find a discreet male prostitute and embrace the one love. Your wife will suspect, of course, but she barely finished high school: what can she do about it? Your children will forgive you.
Best wishes,
Straight guy who is secure enough to dress well and accept gay people for who they are.
113 - I get more pussy than you.
Considering the level of intelligence displayed in this comments section, it isn't surprising that so many of you are making your mark on the world plying Facebook rather than practicing law.
Not that many of the childish folks commenting on this blog will probably care, but for the rest of you, speaking as someone who knew Bill Eskridge as a student and now knows him as a fellow academic, I will say this:
(1) He isn't just a member of the Yale Law faculty; he's one of their best. Who knows if Virginia could have held onto him for long even if it *had* given him tenure, but a big part of the reason this looks so bad for Virginia is that Eskridge is *so obviously* a superstar.
(2) I defy you to find someone who actually knows Bill Eskridge, who has actually dealt with him, and who thinks he is capable of being dishonest. Does he maybe have a bad sense of faculty politics, such that the tenure denial would have come as a total shock to him? Maybe. Would he lie (very publicly) about his own memories, much less in a way that brings him into direct conflict with a prominent and powerful institution? No.
(3) Regarding Dean Mahoney's response: I don't know him. I assume he's a good and honest guy. That is certainly the sense I get from other people. The fact is, though, that he's a dean with an obligation to act in the best interests of UVA trying to piece together second-hand reports about something that happened before he was even there. Whereas Eskridge is giving you first-hand testimony.
I don't know why Leiter thinks Eskridge is lying. But I certainly don't think he's lying.
Oh my god! One is commercial and one is personal! That makes all the difference in a philosophical debate.
106 is a moron. When people use the power of the state to force someone to "not discriminate" that is tyranny. Case closed.
There's a story inside Eskridge's story that I could believe - that he didn't get tenure (probably because the law and econ camp took him down, rather than his orientation), that Henderson came to his office angry, that Henderson was so angry it was a bit scary for a moment, that Henderson was so angry that flecks of saliva went flying, and that Henderson used the F slur. All that, which reflects badly enough on U.Va., I could believe.
While that may be what happened - and may be the story Eskridge retreats to - that's not the sense and import of the testimony he gave congress. That story includes details, implied or directly stated, that are harder to believe.
That Henderson stood over him in his office, deliberately and repeatedly hocking gobs of spittle on him while screaming homophobic slurs? A bit much to swallow.That, a year later, Eskridge was still so scared for his physical safety with regard to Henderson that he found it wise to leave town? Way too much to swallow.
Maybe Eskridge has gilded the lily in an effort to make the story more dramatic ("they didn't give me tenure and so must have been homophobic" is not, without more, that compelling). Maybe his memory has dramatized what for him is the essence of perhaps his one reversal in life, adding in fervently believed details that fit his understanding but that never actually happened. It doesn't matter. We are all entitled to employ a plausibility filter, and the plausible story doesn't quite go to where Eskridge wants us to go.
Why does ATL hate UVA so much?
The guilt by association that's pronounced by the editors of this blog is ridiculous, especially regarding homosexual and racial discrimination allegations.
I don't understand 117. Is he just trying to be funny? Is he serious? No one is actually that stupid.
Richard Epstein wrote a provocative book on why employment anti-discrimination laws are inefficient, but even he was not careless or ignorant enough to appeal to an argument that it's simply tyranny for a country to require that employers not base employment decisions on characteristics that have no relevance to an employee's ability to do his or her job.
Two words when it comes to gay, tenured UVA Law faculty: Charles Whitebread.
Whether Whitebread left UVA for USC in 1981because of discrimination, I know not. But I doubt it. He kept a home in VA, visited UVA Law frequently, delivered the 2000 commencement address there and was so loved and respected by the faculty that UVA Law held a tribute to a guy who left them more than 25 years previously.
RIP, Charlie. You were the best teacher of law ever.
121 - showing respect to a man surnamed "Whitebread." You are clearly racist.
31 -- " I can assure you that no one at UVA, other than the kid who writes his blog and the weirdos who comment anonymously on it ... "
As opposed to the weirdos who comment anonymously on ATL?
120, it IS tyranny. Whether or not the characteristics have anything to do with the job is not the government's business. In free societies, the government only exists to protect its citizens from violence. It does not exist to guarantee anyone a job at another's expense. And of course, the Civil Rights Act has been so perverted as to allow ridiculous arguments like "disparate impact."
124, can you name a single real society, either contemporary or historical, in which the government's only function was to "protect its citizens from violence"? Until you do, the rest of us are going to assume that you're using a special definition of "freedom," and we'll have no basis for believing that "freedom," as you choose to define it, is even desirable.
124 is the reason why libertarians are never taken seriously. Well played, 124.
I'm annoyed that I couldn't have the chance to take a class from a professor who by all accounts is a great *teacher* regardless of his publications. Why do all schools have to be so obsessed with scholarship at the expense of education?
121,
Whitebread left UVA, and it doesn't sound like he was out when he was there. Also, I've heard no one rise to 90's challenge and name a current member of the UVA faculty who is actually out of the closet, though admittedly most self-respecting gays wouldn't choose to live in Charlottesville.
116,
Leiter is a careerist above all else, and the current dean of Chicago--Leiter's current employer--was on Eskridge's tenure committee.
Right 126, because forcing people to hire people whom they don't want is "not a serious" idea. You are a fascist, like so many modern liberals out there.
Interestingly I had Eskridge at Harvard for statutory interpretation. He was the worst professor I had in law school and gave me my only B-. If I had gotten a B+ in that class, instead of a B-, I would have graduated Magna. Magna, Bitches. So fucking close. So I cannot evaluate him fairly because I am still bitter. So bitter.
That said, discrimination against gays does not surprise me. And I don't doubt his version of events.
Still, why couldn't he give me a B+?
-- Lawyer Gay
130: Please explain how anti-discrimination laws (like Title VII or the proposed NDEA) force an employer to hire someone they don't like. You are throwing around terms like "fascist" and "tyranny" without understanding even basic concepts.
And assuming you are also poster 124, your assertion that government's only role is to protect its citizens from violence is probably the most laughable thing I've heard all day. That assertion finds no support in the history of our country's founding, our Constitution or in basic economic theory. Free societies must not exist, then, if a necessary premise of a free society is that protecting citizens from violence is government's only role. Is that what we should understand from your delusional, incoherent ramblings?
Libertarianism is the biggest joke of a political philosophy the human condition has yet to invent. Its main proponents are young, white males who think that Ayn Rand holds the secret to political theory and that their middle class upbringing means that everyone had a middle class upbringing. I pity posters like 124/130 not because they're ignorant fools, but because their parents did a terrible job at nurturing in them any sort of intellectual curiosity.
116: Why do you think Leiter thinks Eskridge is lying?
129: Leiter has to be the worst "careerist" in human history, since all he does is piss people off. He is the least polite blawger around.
I am a UVa law graduate from mid-1980's. I remember Professor Eskridge as being a highly popular young professor. I also somewhat remember the tenure controversy. My recollection is that his scholarship had not developed sufficiently. I do not recall him being known for a specific area of scholarship. I also believe Professor Eskridge's recollection of the office meeting with Committee Chair (who was Prof Henderson) hard to believe based on Hendersom's personality. I, however, certainly recognize that it no doubt was a tough conversation. I also note that Prof Gary Peller, who was granted tenure at the time, was even then well known in Critical Legal Studies. My sense is that Prof E's scholarship as well as perhaps some personality disputes resulted in his being denied tenure.
"Leiter has to be the worst "careerist" in human history, since all he does is piss people off. He is the least polite blawger around."
180!
I agree that Brian Leiter is one of the most annoying, self -important, intellectually dishonest lout in blog world. The fact that U Chicago took him as a chaired professor says a lot about the decline of the school.
133 again. All I said is that Leiter is obviously no careerist since he's an obnoxious blogger. He's a major jurisprudence scholar, which is surely why Chicago hired him, but that wasn't the question. I still don't see where he said Eskridge lied.
132, this is not difficult. Both the CRA and proposed NDEA require that employers not discriminate. Courts have upheld statistical analysis as a means of proving discrimination. Meaning that if a group is 20% of the population, but only 5% of an employer's workforce, this is prima facie evidence of discrimination. This means that if you don't like Group A, and Group is A is 20% of the population, you are forced to hire close to 1/5 of your employees from Group A. This means that you are being forced to hire people you don't like. It's very simple.
130, and further, the biggest joke of a political philosophy is by far liberalism. Its main proponents are women, blacks, hispanics, homosexuals, radical environmentalists and anti-military peaceniks. You are surely in great company there!
This is the UVA that I remember as a student. The useless faculty gangs up against the great ones and attack until the great ones leave. This preserves the futility of faculty. I know of several tenured professors who do nothing and don't publish. They get to stay, while the young up-and comers move on to better schools. It is a system that kills the University's reputation. They don't get why the University was once a top 6 school, and now it struggles to stay in the top 10. Duh!!!!
Why aren't the UVA faculty held accountable for their mistakes in letting this Prof. go?
In football, if you recruit turkeys and let superstars go, you are fired. In law schools, you make up excuses and protect your job.
There is no accountability in this game; Just lies and covering up. UVA would have one of the best faculties in the country (located in a beautiful city) if the culture did not protect the old ones who retired many years ago, but did not tell anyone as they continue to teach.
139, you forgot intelligent, non-whiny, non-victimized white men
142, note that I included homosexuals in the group.
133,
Leiter is obsessed with academic status rankings, and his forays into blogging began as a philosophy department ranking website, which then expanded into a law school rankings. He loves to obsess about the subtleties of professional prestige.
-129
I don't deny that his blog persona is acerbic, but his snottiness is calculated, consistent with careerism. He generally rips into folks for any hint of racist or homophobic behavior; his measured tone here is telling.
>
So aptly spoken. By the way, one salient aspect of Brian Leiter's law school ranking maneuvers has been his persistent attempt, often not well hidden, to put UChicago as highly ranked as humanly possible. That's been certainly an uphill battle in recent years.
I took a course by Professor Eskridge when he was at Georgetown. He was a good professor.
I am conflicted. I attended UVa for undergrad, and, yes, it had its problems, but it was a good school. Then again, I did not come out until law school so that may have skewed my perception regarding homophobia at the school.
Not only is Eskridge a nice guy, but he was instrumental in helping me realize that I did not have to compromise myself as a professional when he advised the gay group at Georgetown. So, anyone trying to put him down really has no clue what they are talking about from my experience with him as a student.
119 is oblivious.
146, I guarantee you it did, but there is a MUCH bigger presence and more resources at the undergrad level.
144=145
Chicago ranked more highly on the Leiter site well before he joined than it does now. But don't let facts get in the way of your obsession!
And 144=Autoadmit troll
@146
I'm oblivious because I refuse to associate an entire school with the (ALLEGED) actions and words of a few professors in the 80s?
It seems that you're the one blinded by your own bias.
@148
I'm oblivious because I refuse to associate an entire school with the (ALLEGED) actions and words of a few professors in the 80s?
It seems that you're the one blinded by your own bias.
151/152
You're oblivious because you think those are the only words and actions that are relevant to the environment at UVA Law.
1. I am certain that Bill Eskridge has turned out to be someone that UVa regrets is not identified with that school. He was reputed to be a very good teacher then, although I never had one of his classes.
2. However, that doesn't mean that the state of his scholarship in 1985 required a different outcome. Go read the mortgage article in Virginia Law Review from late 1984, if you can bear it. At the time, there were more than a few of the opinion that it was not the kind of breakthrough piece that screamed tenure. I was a VLR editor then, and read it at the time.
3. Henderson wrote my clerkship recommendation letters, and so I may not be objective, but I'm inclined toward the views of 118. And to quote from that classic of cinema, Rudy, Stan Henderson is/was "five foot nothin', a hundred and nothin' ", and so the physical intimidation part is just hard to believe. That's not to say that Eskridge is untruthful, but memory after a quarter century is a tricky thing.
I'll have to agree with #52, if by "gay" he/she means "retarded" rather than "homosexual."
154, I respect your opinions.
The goal of the best faculty members should be to find the diamond in the ruff.
As a fellow UVA student and VLR member, I see too much "baggage" within the faculty.
They seem to favor developing more baggage rather than identifying those that could help the school's reputation.
When I saw the names on the tenure committee (many of whom were my professors), I realized that these are the same ones who are responsible for allowing the school to lose its mojo. I hate going back to the school and finding the same "old" baggage that was there many years ago (that students despise) and finding a gang mentality to ensure that no one displaces them.
Eskridge 1 UVA 0
The challenge for U.Va. has always been finding great professors that it could keep. Sometimes, it succeeds (case in point, John Jeffries). Sometimes it tenures great professors, and loses them to other schools (cases in point, Pam Karlan, Bill Stuntz, Saul Levmore, Bob Scott).
The worst thing for U.Va. has been to tenure a mediocrity that no one else wants and have that person stick around for 40 years. I suppose that was what the committee was trying to avoid in its decision on Eskridge. It obviously got it spectacularly wrong. It's ironic that some of the previous tenure mistakes were among the ones on the committee passing judgment.
Does 155 think "retarded" is a more acceptable slur than "gay" or any other immutable attribute used as an attempted slur?
I have to agree with 27, 118 and 154 - I had Professor Henderson for contracts many years after the incident Eskridge describes, but our class loved this brilliant, sweet, mild-mannered and (no disrespect) tiny old man (and he was no spring chicken even in 1985, I suspect). I agree that the description of the altercation, not just the physical intimidation, might be exaggerated slightly...
The egos on these law professors never cease to amaze me, whoever is right about what happened in that room.
I find the rambling reference to Justice Powell, in what was obviously intended to be a pejorative statement, odd. Rather than providing evidence of the atmosphere at UVA in 1980s, it provides evidence of his subjective view of UVA, and brings into question not only the veracity, but the emotional balance, of the writer.
I find the rambling reference to Justice Powell, in what was obviously intended to be a pejorative statement, odd. Rather than providing evidence of the atmosphere at UVA in the 1980s, it provides evidence of his subjective view of UVA, and brings into question not only the veracity, but the emotional balance, of the writer.