Law Schools

Alabama Releases Emails Proving Law School Donor Split Had Nothing To Do With Abortion... And Yet Somehow Make Alabama Look Worse

The split may not have been "political" but reflects a sharp divide in "law school politics."

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Ever since we first started talking about the University of Alabama’s apparent eagerness to refund over $20 million in donor money from Hugh Culverhouse Jr., the school’s had its defenders. While the calendar would suggest that the school’s decision to throw away millions had everything to do with Culverhouse’s public statements criticizing the state’s abortion ban, many pointed to the school’s claim that Culverhouse was an overbearing donor and that the relationship had to be severed for wholly apolitical reasons.

When the school’s trustees finally cut ties last week, we noted that the timing didn’t look good for the school on this score. Indeed, if the school had a problem with the guy, it had every opportunity to drag it out and cut ties months from now. The showiness of the break in the midst of Culverhouse’s criticism inextricably tied the decision to abortion whether or not that’s what actually started the wheels in motion.

Over the weekend, the University of Alabama released emails seeking to prove once and for all that the spat with Culverhouse had nothing to do with the abortion issue and was truly an apolitical split. As the statement puts it:

These emails also clearly establish that Chancellor St. John’s recommendation to refund all monies and rename the law school came on May 25 – 4 days prior to any public comment by the donor about abortion. The donor’s continuing effort to rewrite history by injecting one of society’s most emotional, divisive issues into this decision is especially distasteful. These facts should finally set the record straight.

One would think that revoking constitutional rights for the sake of a political stunt would be the true “especially distasteful” action, but whatever. These emails — to the extent they accurately represent the universe of discussions — do highlight tensions over other issues.

They also tend to make Alabama look a little bit worse at managing the whole “law school thing.”

Because in every email there appears to be both a fundamental lack of communication and an impulse to indulge the very worst aspects of the USNWR ranking game. The oldest exchange in the string of emails is dated May 17. Odd that the school couldn’t provide anything about this long-standing conflict that dates back more than a couple of weeks, but whatever.

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One complaint raised by Alabama Law School’s Dean Mark Brandon deals with filling the aforementioned endowed chair:

As for the search for a chair-holder, I’m happy to involve him, solicit advice, and get recommendations and preferences. But we’ll be in trouble with accrediting bodies – snd vulnerable in the various courts of public opinion – if we are seating responsibility for choosing chair-holders (or any tenure-line faculty) to non-academics.

This is entirely true and exactly why George Mason had to admit that ASSLaw was falling short of basic academic standards. But… was Culverhouse doing this? Here’s what Culverhouse actually wrote that prompted that response:

Let me explain the role I had in the business school when Kay Palin replaced Mike Harden. The search picked three candidates. They showed the three to me and asked which I liked. I chose Kay for a number of reasons, especially the diversity of her background. The school picked Kay. My input was a courtesy but it was an acknowledgment of my involvement and commitment.

So, first of all, he seems to be explicitly pointing out that it’s the school’s decision and that he’s limited to providing advice as a courtesy. It also looks like the University of Alabama had no problems with Culverhouse doing exactly this in the past. Granted Palin was being hired into the administration instead of a teaching faculty role, but still, it’s a pretty big leap barring some communication the school declined to release to read this as Culverhouse trying to dictate who the school could hire.

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Indeed, as later emails address, Culverhouse’s issue with the process was not so much a desire to hire a specific professor but a complaint with the general tenor of the candidates. In a nutshell, he wanted to open his checkbook to hire a legal luminary from an elite school and UA weren’t considering any:

I wanted a renowned constitutional law professor. Someone to make academic waves…These are nice additions to a 3880 faculty with an insecure dean-but they are hardly nationally stature constitutional law figures. I believe Mark, you and I come from different concepts. I want the best law school, not a mediocre law school, whose ranking is a simple mathematical manipulation.

Those of us with long-standing gripes against the ease of manipulating USNWR rankings can sympathize here. To make a genuine reputational push requires making bold faculty moves. Another area of dispute seems to be Culverhouse’s suggestion that the school could bring in more students without sacrificing quality. Tightening up on admissions is a well-known method of gaming the USNWR rankings that gauge schools based on grades and scores of incoming students and look favorably on faculty/student ratios. There are certainly advantages to the small school feel, but this does seem to feed the idea that Culverhouse hoped the school would find its success by moving outside the USNWR rubric.

At one point, Culverhouse bemoans the school’s focus on “danc[ing] to a singular tune: the U.S. News Report rankings.” At another, Dean Brandon complains of Culverhouse to UA President Stuart Bell, “if one wanted to see Florida or Georgia leapfrog Alabama, this would be one way to do it.” Exposing that fundamental philosophical break somehow manages to make Alabama look worse than just firing him over a proposed boycott did.

Culverhouse asked the school to return $10 million that he had paid ahead of the defined schedule, which was either charitably a refund based on his belief that the money was going to be used immediately on projects (like paying the next Larry Tribe) that weren’t happening or cynically a leverage move. Either way, this is apparently where the Trustees decided to give him all his money back.

In any event, this doesn’t sound like a guy trying to control academic freedom, but a guy asking the school to use his money on bigger ticket candidates.

Perhaps there’s some history beyond these emails that the school claim “set the record straight.” At one point Dean Brandon suggests that Culverhouse has a “professed desire to fire ten professors.” Maybe… but there’s nothing really suggesting that. All Culverhouse says in any of these emails is that:

You have a ratio of teacher/students that is ridiculous and you need to increase the student body or reduced teachers and support staff.

How does that turn into a desire to fire ten professors? At every turn, there’s a major logical leap being taken by the school. It’s like everything he says is instantly interpreted through a sinister lens.

At least the school seemingly wasn’t trying to cut him out over his opposition to the Alabama abortion law. Too bad they were actually trying to kick him to the curb for other ill-considered reasons.

Earlier: Alabama Law School Gives Up Over $20 Million To Own The Libs
Donor Tells Students Not To Go To Law School Bearing His Name

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior 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. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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