According to the allegations in a lawsuit filed in the District Court of Arizona, the Phoenix School of Law fired two tenured law professors - Michael O'Connor and Celia Rumann - last month for opposing the school's new approach to reducing student transfer attrition. The complaint is here. The ABA Journal article is here and the Courthouse News Service article is here.
I would have expected the folks at Phoenix to have worked mightily to avoid this complaint, and the attendant press.
I mean really: reducing attrition by refusing to write recommendation letters for those students seeking to transfer??
This is pretty terrible, but believable. Think it is happening at more than just the for-profit schools. Kudos to the professors for standing up for themselves.
Posted by: Anon | June 05, 2013 at 09:24 AM
The allegations of this lawsuit are entirely believable. If the ABA had any credibility, they would immediately initiate proceedings to revoke accreditation of all Infilaw schools. Faculty governance at these schools appears to be nothing more than a smoke-screen for previously decided corporate policies.
Posted by: anon | June 05, 2013 at 10:54 AM
PSL is a diploma mill - and I don't say that lightly. Based on my own experience with PSL and other Infilaw schools, I find the allegations by Profs. Rumman and O'Connor to be credible. I only hope that this sheds light on the serious problems with for-profit law schools and prompts the ABA to reconsider its decision to accredit such schools.
Posted by: anonprof | June 05, 2013 at 12:39 PM