UVA Law Faculty Statement Regarding President Sullivan

Further to Dan Filler's post and Bob Strassfeld's comments on President Sullivan's resignation, below  is the text of a letter that UVA Law School Dean Paul Mahoney and a great number of the law faculty have signed:

Dear Rector Dragas and Members of the Board of Visitors:

The undersigned members of the faculty of the School of Law write to express our confidence in President Teresa Sullivan. We share the Board's concerns about the financial and operational challenges facing higher education and the need for resolute action to address them.

We are, however, deeply concerned about the lack of process leading up to the Board's actions on June 10. We do not believe that a decision of this magnitude should have been taken without notice and without consultation with representatives of the University's faculty, students, and alumni.

We encourage the Board of Visitors to reconsider its present course of action. Without a clear explanation for the grounds of its decision and the process by which it arrived at that decision, the University community cannot be reconciled with the Board's efforts to replace President Sullivan. When President Sullivan was appointed, the Law School was lucky to have her husband, Douglas Laycock, join the faculty. We want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to him. He has been an exemplary colleague, a tremendous teacher, and a friend to many since joining the Law faculty. We hope he will remain our colleague for years to come.

The University community was surprised last week by the sudden decision to remove President Sullivan. That surprise has turned to anger and protest. We urge the Board to revisit its decision with care and deliberation.

The letter and signers are here, along with some other responses from the UVA community.  The image is of the UVA Rotunda.

Comments

[Bob Strassfeld]

There was interesting, and depressing, coverage in yesterday's Washington Post. One of the suggested reasons for the firing was the possibility that President Sullivan was not viewed as sufficiently ruthless to eliminate such inefficient departments as classics and German. I'm curious if the engineers of the coup are the same folks who several years back were bemoaning how tenured radicals had eliminated Western Civilization as a required course.

[Ray Campbell]

I don't think there's much overlap. Those leading the coup in Charlottesville were Darden grads who are pushing for a managerial approach to higher education, not humanities types pushing for a core curriculum.