Law Professors, Law Schools

Faculty Really Excited About Worst Name Change Ever

They just won't give up, no matter how stupid it is.

By  
on

Gmu_law_schoolThe quest to fulfill what is at once the absolute worst branding disaster in law school history and the most cynical display of selling out a public institution to the vanity of the highest bidders continues with news that the tenured and tenured-track faculty have unanimously (with one abstention) lent their full-throated support to renaming George Mason Law the Antonin Scalia School of Law or, more affectionately, ASSLaw.

Well, no, the school is still desperately trying to take back their initial naming convention and pretend it was always intended to be the Antonin Scalia Law School, but no one is going to indulge this fantasy because we’re all about original f**king intent over here.

Since the school announced its intention to let Charles Koch and some other anonymous ideologue rename the school after Justice Scalia, the proposal has earned the ire of alumni, state politicians, and the faculty of the broader university, the latter likely concerned that their academic reputation is now forever linked to an institution with the commensurate integrity of an NFL front office or a cheap domestic beer brand.

After GMU’s president offered a rambling, incoherent defense of the name change, the more or less ideologically friendly cohort of George Mason Law faculty have passed their own resolution supporting the name change.

The resolution begins with the same tired attempt to pass off the move as a content-neutral recognition of Justice Scalia’s being a “consequential” member of the Court. To say this dog won’t hunt is an understatement. This dog grew a pony tail, joined PETA, and won’t stop telling you about his favorite seitan recipes. This is not even the least bit compelling. The donors didn’t pick some “consequential” justice at random. They chose Scalia specifically to express an ideological viewpoint and no matter what the school tries to spin, it has to own the fact that this move makes a public institution an explicit billboard for that content-specific message. Look, if they proposed renaming the school after Justice Scalia 30 years hence, maybe they could get away with this pitch, but we’re barely six months removed from this guy proposing in open court that black people might be better off at “lesser schools, where they do not feel that they’re… in classes that are too — too fast for them.” Hard to get enough emotional and intellectual distance from that one to say, “We just appreciate his effort!”

The Law Faculty finds that the minimal conditions placed on the two gifts connected with the re-naming of the Law School are appropriate. Both grants specify that the University must notify the donors if it replaces the current Law School Dean, and both reserve to the donors discretion to discontinue future contributions toward the gifts if the donors determine that the University or the Law School do not comply with the terms of the grants.

Of course those conditions aren’t really fleshed out other than to assure everyone that they certainly don’t interfere with academic freedom. Which is probably true as far as the faculty in this meeting are concerned. Though whatever the specific conditions may be, it’s clear that the donors can cut off the funding spigot if they decide the gift doesn’t “advance their philanthropic goals.” Based on this naming and past gifts from Koch entities, these goals, at least impliedly, include branding the school as the premier destination for conservative legal scholarship. And, hey, that’s cool and all (putting aside that this isn’t a private school), but don’t pretend that accepting money under these conditions isn’t crimping academic freedom just because the current faculty feels at home within those conditions.

Sponsored

The unprecedented nature of the Faculty Senate’s baseless criticisms of the gifts at issue suggests ideological bias. The Faculty Senate’s insistence that major gifts be accepted only following some kind of a public deliberative process is not a demand that has ever been made before, or since, the Scalia naming gifts were announced. The Faculty Senate is claiming to be acting to protect the academic freedom of University faculty even though their stated criticisms are specious, the faculty of the unit being re-named and receiving the grants supports both gifts, and the senators representing the Law School pointed out as much to other senators during Senate deliberation.

Well, I doubt anyone pitched renaming anything after a wildly controversial public official months after his death before. Even with all the notoriety they’ve earned over the last ten years, the Koch brothers never wielded the sort of power over the rights of Americans that Scalia did. Also add in the two consecutive elections where the voters of the state that funds this — need we remind — public school straight up voted for someone committed to reject and replace Scalia’s ideological bent if given an opportunity. That assuredly removes this situation from any preexisting protocols and to pretend it doesn’t is downright silly.

To all onlookers, but especially to the donors of the two gifts and to the Scalia family, the Law Faculty expresses its regret at the unprofessional and dissembling conduct of the Faculty Senate.

No, the Faculty Senate raised entirely professional concerns over where higher education should draw the line when it comes to treating the institution as an dogmatic vanity plate. The apology to the family should come from the people who made the, appropriately labeled, “ASS over tea kettle” decision to generate publicity off an obviously provocative name change when no one bothered to check the acronym.

(Check out the full release on the next page…)

Sponsored

Earlier: George Mason Law Changing Name To Antonin Scalia School Of Law
#ASSLaw At George Mason Attempts Re-Brand, Will Fail
ASSLaw President Struggles To Defend Name Change
Lawmaker Opposes George Mason Name Change To #ASSLaw

Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

1 2Next »

Topics

, , , , , , ,