Law Schools

Former Law Professor Banned From Campus

Is this law school overreacting to a former law professor's email?

By  
on

Some crazy stuff is going on at Buffalo Law School.

The saga starts in 2009, when professor Jeffrey Malkan gets fired from his position at the law school. He’s all butthurt about it, and fair enough, since according to the Buffalo News, he hasn’t been able to get an academic job since:

Malkan, 61, hasn’t had a job since he left the Law School in 2009, and he blames his inability to land a new post in academia on the dean who fired him, Makau W. Mutua.

Malkan said Mutua wrecked his ability to get a job by repeatedly defaming him, in court documents, as a potential mass murderer.

So Malkan is pissed at Mutua, who allegedly compared Malkan’s anger over being shitcanned to that of a mass shooter. Malkin even sued Mutua for his wrongful termination, and it seems that lawsuit was just the catalyst needed to expose a churning sea of discontent at the law school, all of which culminated in Mutua resigning the deanship in 2014:

The Malkan case helped expose a deep rift between Mutua and faculty, some of whom were critical of his leadership of the school. Mutua resigned as dean in 2014 to return to the faculty. Gardner took over last December on an interim basis.

The Law School remains divided over Malkan and other issues. In 2014, nine senior law professors filed a complaint against Mutua with the Attorney Grievance Committee, Eighth Judicial District in Buffalo, seeking public censure or disbarment of Mutua over alleged perjury in the Malkan case. Such complaints are supposed to be kept confidential.

But this past June, Mutua put into the public court record a two-page reply to the Attorney Grievance Committee, denying he had made any false statements in the Malkan case and questioning the credibility of the complainants.

All of this is old news, and, admittedly a long way to go in terms of exposition. But it sets the stage for the latest in As Buffalo Law Turns, which takes the most recent spate of school shootings and First Amendment issues and puts them into a blender.

It seems Malkan has kept up correspondence with some of his colleagues at the law school — and not like a handful of close friends, more like two dozen — who he regularly blasts with information about his lawsuit and other updates of his life and times. After the Umpqua Community College shooting, Malkan took to his email to write another missive about his situation:

Sponsored

So when a shooter went on a rampage Oct. 1 at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., Malkan said he felt the stigma of Mutua’s words again. He sent off an email to about two dozen former colleagues, mentioning the shooting that killed 10 and injured seven.

“Every time this senseless and insane violence recurs, which is all too often,” he wrote, “I despair that I will ever recover my reputation and dignity.”

And that was a step too far for the powers that be at Buffalo Law School. Citing several emails that reference mass shootings, the school banned him from stepping foot on the campus. In an email to the faculty and staff, Interim Law School Dean James A. Gardner attached a photograph of Malkan and indicated that the University Police or 911 should be called if Malkan were spotted on campus.

Now comes the $100,000 question — is Malkan really a danger? After he sent his most recent emails to the faculty, the University Police interviewed Malkan and determined he was not a threat (yes, before the Law School issued their ban), he lives 450 miles away from the campus, and many of the faculty that received Malkan’s email think the school’s reaction is punitive and a way to save the reputation of the former dean.

But there also seems to be concern on the part of other members of the faculty:

But other faculty members said they were concerned by the tenor of Malkan’s emails, especially in recent months.

“In the past few months, it’s become a bit more vitriolic. There’s more of an emotional component there,” said a professor. “There’s a little more anger coming across.”

Sponsored

Maybe we live in a world where mass shootings are the new normal and “better safe than sorry” is the only protection against senseless violence (since the NRA is great at preventing actual safeguards). That seems like a terrible safety net, but it’s an argument.

It seems to me like this is a massive overreaction that seeks to only further stigmatize Malkan. But I guess the school thinks better safe than sorry, and from Malkan’s perspective, who wants to be in Buffalo in the winter anyway?

Former UB law professor barred from campus after emails ‘cross line’ [The Buffalo News]

Earlier: I Wish For A More Expansive Definition Of Law Dean Perjury

Topics

, , , , , , , ,