NYU Law School Students Desperately Don't Want This Professor Teaching But Not For The Reasons You Might Think
They want the SEC Commissioner to stay right where he is, thank you very much.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
There are a lot of reasons why law students petition to keep a professor from teaching at the school and almost all of them are bad news. Title IX issues, racially antagonistic language, being Amy Wax — all valid reasons to want a teacher out of a law school, but also all signs of something having already gone wrong at the school.
NYU Law students and graduates are petitioning one former professor not to return to the school for a much different reason. SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson Jr. saw his appointed term expire in June, but can remain on the Commission through 2020 or until a successor is confirmed. With Democrats in the Senate dragging their heels on nominations and no guarantees that Trump would perform his duty and actually appoint the Senate Democratic nominee, liberals and progressives alike want the independent Jackson to remain on the Commission as long as possible to avoid a vacancy that could become open season on Wall Street rules.
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As Bloomberg reports, the NYU Law community flocked to a petition to urge the school to allow Jackson to remain at his post and, indirectly, to urge Jackson to stay there.
“It’s extremely important that he stays to protect the people’s interest because the Republicans are protecting corporate interests,” said Leo Gertner, director of field services at the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 and a 2016 NYU Law graduate. “His teaching duties can wait.”
For the school’s part, Dean Trevor Morrison has told petitioners that the school is not putting any pressure on Jackson to get back to teaching:
“I can confirm that, although the NYU community is certainly excited for Commissioner Jackson to return to campus, we have placed no restrictions on his public service leave and continue to support the decisions he makes about his work in Washington,” Morrison wrote.
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Whether or not Jackson agrees is still up in the air.
NYU Students Beg Teacher to Stay at SEC as Wall Street Adversary [Bloomberg]
Joe 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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