Career service offices can be scary places these days, given the tough job-searching environment for law school students. The summer plans of many 1Ls and 2Ls are still up in the air this year, as firm offers are sparse.

Many law school students have given up hope of finding a job. One law school may be giving up hope too. Boston College Law School is considering an alternative to a summer gig: summer classes.

From an email sent out by BC Law Associate Dean Mike Cassidy:

We have heard from many students that the summer legal job market is very difficult, and that if there were an option to earn credit for summer study (while perhaps working in a non legal setting to pay the bills) some students might find this option very attractive, especially if it would help them accelerate their degrees.

So BC students may be able to spend the summer working as Starbucks baristas while taking classes. Are they really raring to finish up their degrees and get into the job market for real?

When we first reported on Boston College Law professor Scott Fitzgibbon’s anti-gay marriage advertisement in Maine, we noted that the classes he taught were not germane to his views on gay marriage:

According to his bio, Professor Fitzgibbon teaches jurisprudence, corporations, securities regulation, and contracts. Are gay and lesbian BC Law students comfortable learning about these subjects from an anti-gay marriage professor?

But the Boston College Law School website Eagleonline has done some fantastic investigative journalism and revealed that Fitzgibbon teaches what he preaches:

In the Spring of 2008, a group of Boston College Law School students enrolled in Professor Scott T. Fitzgibbon’s “Marriage: Law and Theory” seminar formally approached Dean of Students Norah Wylie to express concern over Fitzgibbon’s allegedly improper conduct in class.

Can the law school claim that it is “welcoming” to gays and lesbians when it had an anti-gay marriage professor teaching its marriage and the law class?

Let’s look at the students’ complaints after the jump.

It’s too early to take nominations for this year’s law revue contest. But an early contender will surely be a video we received from students at Boston College Law School. It’s a spoof of BC law professor Scott Fitzgibbon’s anti-gay marriage commercial. Here’s the set-up, from the BC Student Bar Review (that’s a social organization, for 1Ls still wondering what happens outside of the library):

Dear all,

The next bar review will begin at 8pm this Thursday, October 1 at The Kells…. We can hear some of you already: “but guyssssss, The Kells is full of meatheads in Red Sox hats.” Well, we’ve got a news flash for you, Little Lord Fauntleroy: every bar in Boston is full of meatheads in Red Sox hats, and very few of them have dance floors as spirited or drinks as reasonably priced as The Kells. We find it to be a great place to blow off some steam, get weird on the dance floor, and accost your TA from LLRW and force him to do shots of Jameson with you.

However, as Dean Garvey reminded us in his memo, we must be respectful of those who disagree with us, no matter their beliefs. In the spirit of providing equal time, we have included a brief video message from the opposition:

The Kells is the kind of place that makes you want to bathe yourself in lye when you wake up the next morning afternoon. Here’s what the loyal opposition has to say:

After the jump, would the real Professor Fitzgibbon please stand up?

We’ve been waiting for this. We’ve been covering Boston College Law Professor Scott Fitzgibbon and his commercial against gay-marriage. That commercial is now being shown on national television (I caught it being discussed on Dylan Ratigan’s show this morning). I can’t imagine how proud the BC Law community is to have their law school prominently featured in an ad that — as one legal blogger put it: “relies on inflammatory and unfounded rhetoric.”

Today, a group of BC Law professors put out a statement that tries to soothe the feelings of gays and lesbians that may feel the university as a whole doesn’t think they should be given equal treatment.

Read it after the jump.

Yesterday, we talked about a Boston College Law professor, Scott Fitzgibbon, who went up to Maine to shoot an anti-gay marriage commercial. John Garvey, Dean of Boston College Law, didn’t respond to us, but he did send around an email to the BC Law community. As many predicted, Dean Garvey defended Professor Fitzgibbon. Here is the pertinent part of Dean Garvey’s letter:

Professor Fitzgibbon, as a member of our faculty, is free to express his views. His public statements represent his own opinions, as the advertisement makes clear, and do not state any official position of Boston College Law School. We also have faculty members who hold a contrary view, which they too are free to express publicly. Many have done so while referring to themselves as BC Law professors. One of them has publicly led the fight to oppose the Solomon Amendment on the grounds that it is an affront to gay and lesbian students and prospective members of the U.S. military. Others have taken controversial positions on such subjects as abortion, euthanasia, and the treatment of detainees.

I believe that free expression is central to our mission as a law school committed to public
discourse and the free exchange of ideas and opinions. We have faculty and students from many different backgrounds, and with many different points of view. It is our expectation that they will continue to engage in public discourse, and argue their positions with passion and civility, with the intellectual freedom that an academic institution affords to us all.

Dean Garvey is clearly right insofar as academic institutions must be grounded on the free exchange of thoughts and ideas, even when those ideas are controversial.

But as NYU Law Dean Richard Revesz found out, the gay marriage issue isn’t always as simple as a mere intellectual debate. If you believe that marriage is a basic civil right, then the issue can transcend the normal bounds of academic discourse.

Not surprisingly, Above the Law readers have some opinions on whether Dean Garvey is taking the correct stance here. We present Dean Garvery’s full letter and some of the best comments and emails, after the jump.

The gay marriage debate continues to rage in New England, and now a Boston College Law Professor wants to weigh in. The state of Maine has a ballot proposition about gay marriage this fall, and BC Law Professor Scott T. Fitzgibbon decided to shoot an anti-gay marriage ad.

Just to be clear, this is not a Dr. Li-ann Thio situation. Thio was invited to teach at NYU Law this fall and later declined the invitation under a hail of student protests. But Thio seemed to go out of her way to disparage gays and lesbians and the very practice of homosexual sex.

Fitzgibbon at least tries to stick to the legal issues surrounding the systematic denial of civil rights to gays and lesbians.

After the jump, check out the ad for yourself.

More schools are jumping in to try to help their own deferred graduates. Boston College Law School has come up with a “hodgepodge” of initiatives, according to EagleOnline:

* Law School Fellows Program: “as many as twelve positions” will be available, paid at “a modest hourly rate” in places like the Legal Assistance Bureau and the Law Library.

* Career Services Partnership Program: working with some firms and companies, the Law School will coordinate jobs for graduates from September 1 of this year to March 1 of the next, to help out those who are waiting out deferrals or bar exam results. While stipends vary, past participants have “averaged $800 to $1000 per week.”

* Audit Courses: Class of 2009 graduates will be able to enroll in “a number of courses” in the fall semester, without tuition but without the opportunity to receive a grade, with the “understanding” that “graduates will participate in the class as observers.”

* Eagle Scholars Program: while auditing courses, graduates can participate in a weekly seminar intended to help students produce “a law review article of publishable quality.”

* Research Assistantships: in a measure bound to raise the ire of some continuing students, graduates are being welcomed to apply for assistantships with professors. Some faculty members have been given the green light to hire an extra assistant for the summer and fall.

* Public Service Jobs: for graduates waiting out deferrals, the Law School is extending access to PS Lawnet in an effort to connect graduates with public service opportunities.

Unlike some schools, BC Law doesn’t appear to be offering an extension in health care benefits. But at least the school isn’t asking students to go deeper into debt. As long as graduates stay away from the local pig farm, they should be okay. At least the ones who have only been deferred until March 2010 or earlier.

The article also has an interesting quote from a BC Law spokesperson:

“[w]e’re all very concerned about our graduates and the economic situation,” but stressed that while “we all want to help…unless students come to us we won’t know how to help them.”

BC students might want to bring up “loan forbearance” just in case the administration is really unaware of how that might help out deferred or unemployed recent graduates.

After the jump, let’s look at what is going on at Loyola - Chicago.

We are entering that most excellent time of the year when universities announce their choices for commencement and class day speakers. Who gets chosen to go where is always a fun indication of who is hot on the speaker circuit, and which schools have the most pull.

We’re getting some early reports on some law school speakers, and so far two really stand out: Columbia is inviting Gray Davis, Boston College Law scored Ben Bernanke.

The reaction from CLS students to former (failed) Governor Davis is nothing short of hilarious. You’d think they invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at … oh, sorry.

Here’s an excerpt of a (fictitious) letter that has been going around, heralding the coming of Gray Davis:

Or look at what the Graduation Committee is saying:

Dear Class of 2009,

It is our distinct pleasure to announce yet again our Commencement speaker, a man with a particularly poignant history. At some point in our lives, we will all fail. Some of our failures will be small, others more painful. We will endure failures beyond our control, like many employees in the current economy. Hopefully, we will continue to learn from these failures.

Former California Governor Gray Davis is a man who has had his own failures, despite a proud record of public service and personal success. His recall gripped the nation, and the story of his subsequent rehabilitation approaches that of Presidents Clinton, Carter, and Nixon in its scope and influence. He is also an alumnus of Columbia Law School, and speaker at our graduation ceremony. We hope that you will join us in welcoming him and take this opportunity to learn from his journey just as you begin your own personal and professional path post-law school. His story is all the more on point given the uncertainty that we ourselves face in the coming months and years.

Is this like a law school version of the scared straight program?

Moving north, the students at BC Law have a very different reaction to their commencement speaker.