Law Professors, Law School Deans, Law Schools, Money

Law Professor Outraged By Plan To Use His Raise To Fund Jobs For Unemployed Graduates

This law professor is ENRAGED at the thought of not getting his raise.

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OREGON LAW — PROFESSOR ROBERT C. ILLIG — EMAIL TO LAW FACULTY

Michael,

To my shock and amazement, I just learned – three days after the faculty meeting – that someone (you? the faculty?) is trying to take away my one-in-a-decade chance at a raise WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT.

Why did I not know that this was on the agenda for the faculty meeting? Was the lack of notice intentional? (And was there a quorum?)

Why did no one announce the result? Certainly, someone changing my salary without my knowledge seems like something I would like to hear about. Was someone hoping I and the others who were unable to attend simply wouldn’t notice until it was too late?

Note that I was unable to attend only because the regularly scheduled faculty meeting was recently re-scheduled to conflict with the Oregon Law Review’s long-planned academic symposium at which I was presenting.

(And, by the way, the complete absence of the deans and faculty at that symposium was noticeable and embarrassing. A number of the very students we are trying to support asked why their other law review advisors, their deans, and their friends on the faculty failed to show up to support them. I was, in truth, ashamed and had no good explanation – and many of the students were clearly angry and disillusioned. Expect another class to graduate with ill feelings toward us. And throwing a few scholarships their way won’t make up for our failure to be there when they need us.)

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But back to the point – voting on this important a decision without notice and without serious consideration was a gross breach not only of procedure but of TRUST.

What did the agenda say? “Discussion of Graduate Fellowships.” Pardon my French, but this is absolute bullshit. Colleagues do not ambush one another like this.

How can I trust the administration or any of my faculty colleagues? No wonder we’ve become a third-tier law school. Who’s going to want to come here to study or teach in this kind of poisonous atmosphere?

As soon as money got tight, we seem to have turned on one another as if this was a zero-sum game. Well, it isn’t. And enough is enough.

I’ve watched as our culture has eroded now for almost three years. Everyone is in everyone else’s business, instead of their own. Everyone is worried about what everyone else is getting, not what they can personally contribute. If some professor or professors want to donate their raise to the students – or to some other worthy charity – that’s their business. (Personally, I give to Food for Lane Country, Planned Parenthood, and the United Way. I feel that having given up the chance at a seven-figure annual income is charity enough for the students, and I am particularly saddened by hungry children. Maybe I should move that the recipients of summer stipends donate those funds to the poor and needy?)

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We need a strategy. We need teamwork. We need an Oregon culture where everyone can trust one another. Please, please, can we go back to the Oregon I love?

Robert C. Illig

Dean’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow
Director, Oregon Law Summer Sports Institute

William W. Knight Law Center
1221 University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon 97403

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