Picking a dean can come down to a games of politicking. Firing deans can too. Over the last few years, we’ve seen employers nix diversity-focused positions to avoid getting sued because the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment hates measures that help minorities enjoy privileges and rights long denied to them, actually. Clifford Dawkins Jr., a former assistant dean at Rutgers Law, was fired over his responses to diversity matters. He recently launched a suit over his treatment at Rutgers Law. Reuters has coverage:
[Clifford Dawkins Jr.] said in a new lawsuit that he was fired after he questioned how funds raised for diversity efforts were spent and school officials accused him of “watering down” a minority student program in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision banning the consideration of race in admissions.
Firing a dean for questioning where the money goes? Considering that fundraising is a huge part of their job description, wouldn’t it make sense for them to have some interest in making sure that the money goes toward the stated ends? Let’s look at the details:
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Dawkins said his relationship with Bond began to sour in 2023 when he objected to the school using about $20,000 raised during the Minority Student Program’s annual gala toward an overall law school deficit.
At face value that sort of objection makes total sense. Granted, 2023 was a watershed year in terms of diversity-related managerial decisions for obvious reasons, but that doesn’t mean you should be able to just redirect funds given for a specific reason willy-nilly. The second pain points also seems to have strong roots in the Court’s SFFA v. Harvard decision:
Dawkins said he faced further hostility after he sought in 2025 to include white and affluent students in the Minority Student Program in an effort to ensure it complied with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling.
Again, appears to be fair game. It should have been obvious that a new basis for diversity — race-based or otherwise — should have been thoroughly fleshed out in light of mounting pressure to de-divers duifye to ahistoric readings of the Fourteenth Amendment being preferred to the truth and Trump promising to get rid of DEI to bring back merit-based leadership and competent decision making. No clue on the ETA on that; it seems like the identity preference just shifted toward demanding fealty to Trump if they want summer jobs. Orange really is the new Black, I guess.
Jokes aside, Dawkins’s inclusion of White and affluent students seems less like “watering down” the the program (again, few things could douse it more than SFFA v. Harvard) and more like good optics. Just look at the basis for so many of the spite suits we’ve seen recently. FASORP suing Northwestern because they aren’t White enough deserves a mention, but the biggest mover in this space might be Blum & Co. suing any and every summer program that was focused on law students hailing from historically underrepresented groups in the legal industry. Few things would serve as terminal defense in a lawsuit like being able to point to Old Money Steve™ to show that the minority group’s actions are in line with SCOTUS holdings. Also, can we be honest with each other? Many minority groups have been open to anyone who wants to join for a while now — here’s an article on Harvard’s BLSA opening themselves up to non-Black members over 30 years ago. It looks like the watering down accusation assumes some level of “purity” that hasn’t been the case for decades.
On balance there are worse ways to engage cautiously with SCOTUS canning diversity. It isn’t like he said the students couldn’t use the word Black on any of their advertisements or anything.
The complaint alleges additional inequities like barring him from speaking at faculty meetings, a defamation claim, and unnecessary investigations into legal work he’s done outside of the university. He’s suing for reinstatement, back pay, and punitives. Whatever the outcome, I hope that it benefits the students.
Ex-Minority Student Dean Sues Rutgers Law School Over Firing [Reuters]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.