The Faculty Lounge

Some Guys Named Junior

 

Melanie Wilson Named Dean of Washington and Lee Law

Washington and Lee School of Law announced that its new dean will be Melanie D. Wilson.  Wilson is currently dean emerita and Lindsay Young Distinguished Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law.  She  holds a JD from the University of Georgia School of Law. Wilson will take over from interim dean Michelle Drumbl on July 1. 

 

 

Temple Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

Temple University, a top-ranked research university experiencing great momentum and situated in the City of Philadelphia, seeks a bold and dynamic leader to serve as dean of the Beasley School of Law (Temple Law). Temple University invites inquiries, nominations and applications for this exciting opportunity to be part of a forward-thinking and thriving institution. A Pennsylvania state-supported comprehensive research university ranked in the highest Carnegie research university category, Temple is the 38th largest four-year public university in the United States and one of the nation’s leading centers of professional education. With 17 schools and colleges, eight campuses, more than 600 degree programs and more than 35,000 students, Temple is one of the nation’s most comprehensive and diverse learning environments.

Since its inception in 1895, Temple Law has been committed to preparing smart, talented people for success as lawyers and advocates. By focusing on experiential learning that dovetails with and informs doctrinal coursework, Temple Law students are educated in the lived experiences of real people and inspired to pursue the big ideas that can move the law forward. Temple Law graduates have excelled in every imaginable practice area and setting, locally and around the world, and are sought after by employers who know the value of a Temple Law degree. Temple Law's institutional mission is to deliver an accessible, affordable, and excellent legal education.

In addition to outstanding faculty, Temple Law students learn from, and teach, each other. Temple Law is committed to building and sustaining a diverse, inclusive law school community that welcomes people who have historically encountered barriers to legal education. Every student benefits from the opportunity to see the world from various vantage points, and to understand better how their own perspective has been shaped over time. Such exchanges, whether held in the classroom or outside of it, deepen the understanding of how laws and legal systems impact real lives. Diverse viewpoints strengthen the community and profession, and make Temple Law students better lawyers.

Hiring Announcement: Northern Kentucky University, Salmon P. Chase College of Law (Visitor - Summer - Property)

From an email message that I received earlier today:

Northern Kentucky University – Salmon P. Chase College of Law invites applications for a Visiting Faculty Position for the summer 2022 semester.  We are looking for a visitor who can cover our six-credit Property course (in person, not remote), which will meet two evenings per week (6:30pm-9:30pm) between May 9 and August 4 (August 4 is the exam date).  There will need to be a few additional class sessions throughout the summer to comply with ABA standards. The position will be a temporary, non-tenure-track appointment. All applicants should have excellent credentials and demonstrated skill in teaching.

NKU is a growing metropolitan university of more than 14,000 students served by more than 2,000 faculty and staff on a thriving suburban campus near Cincinnati. Located in the quiet suburb of Highland Heights, Kentucky—just seven miles southeast of Cincinnati—we have become a leader in Greater Cincinnati and Kentucky by providing a private school education for a fraction of the cost. While we are one of the fastest growing universities in Kentucky, our professors still know our students' names.

For more information about NKU and Chase, please visit nku.edu and chaselaw.nku.edu.  NKU is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access/Affirmative Action institution. We embrace inclusiveness, equity, and global awareness in all dimensions of our work and seek excellence through diversity among our students, administrators, faculty, and staff. Application by members of diverse groups is highly encouraged.

The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky metro area has a population exceeding 2.1 million. The region is an enjoyable place to live that is undergoing exciting urban revitalization and economic growth. The area includes a great variety of attractions, such as museums (art, historic, children’s, and more), a plenitude of live music venues, professional sports, riverfront parks, biking trails, a fantastic zoo with a legendary hippo, large aquarium, and many festivals.

For more information, and/or to submit a letter of interest and CV, please contact Lawrence D. Rosenthal, Associate Dean for Academics, at rosenthall@nku.edu.

Ted Cruz Channels Roy Cohn

The Hill has posted my new essay this morning, in which I explain the direct line from Roy Cohn’s library purges to Ted Cruz’s misuse of schoolbooks to attack Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Here is the gist:

Ted Cruz's new McCarthyism

By Steven Lubet, Opinion Contributor — 03/24/22 08:00 AM EDT 249

It was regrettably predictable that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would not get through her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee without having to endure a McCarthyist smear from Republicans, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) did not disappoint. He took a virtual page from the late Sen. Joe McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) playbook by blaming Jackson for the very existence of library books that he considers politically unacceptable.

For reasons best known to himself, Cruz decided that the first Black woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court needed to be grilled about what he evidently perceived as a connection to critical race theory — a graduate school discipline lately demonized by Republicans, but that has played no part in Jackson’s jurisprudence or career. As Jackson patiently explained, “I’ve never studied critical race theory. I’ve never used it. It doesn’t come up in the work that I do as a judge.”

To drive his point home, Cruz displayed a stack of books that his staff discovered to be either assigned or recommended at Georgetown Day School. The one he found most “astonishing” was a children’s book by Ibram X. Kendi, “Stamped for Kids,” which is on the “summer reading list” for grades three through five.

Predating Cruz’s critical race discoveries by almost 70 years, Cohn found the American libraries to be “fairly teeming with anti-American, pro-Soviet books written by Communists and fellow travelers.” Meeting with reporters in Frankfurt, for example, he triumphantly displayed “The Maltese Falcon,” by the hard-boiled mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, as “proof that there were indeed Communists represented in the American library.”

To his credit, President Dwight Eisenhower refused to go along. Speaking at the Dartmouth College commencement, he told the graduates, “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.”

Somebody on the Senate Judiciary Committee should deliver Ike’s message to Ted Cruz, letting him know that his pitiful rehash of McCarthy’s literary investigations should be relegated to the sorry history where they both belong.

Or perhaps a better-known admonition from the McCarthy era would be even more appropriate. “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

You can read the entire non-paywalled essay here.

Carla Pratt Stepping Down as Dean of Washburn Law

Dean Carla Pratt has decided to step down as dean of Washburn University College of Law after almost four years of service.  She will be leaving Washburn and moving to Norman, Oklahoma to become the OU' Law's inaugural Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Chair in Civil Rights, Race and Justice in Law. Washburn plans to name an interim dean before Pratt's departure. 

North Dakota Law Names Dean Finalists

The University of North Dakota has announced four finalists in its search for a new dean to succeed Michael McGinniss.  They are: Fareed Nassor Hayat (CUNY), Lou Mulligan (Kansas), Bradley Myers (North Dakota), and Brian A. Pappas (Eastern Michigan University.)

Ketanji Brown on Prevention versus Punishment

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Prevention versus Punishment: Towards a Principled Distinction in the Restraint of Released Sex Offenders, 109 Harvard Law Review in May 1996 at 1711-28.

Nebraska Law Seeks Visiting Professors

This just in:

The University of Nebraska College of Law is looking for visiting professors for 2022-23. We are accepting letters of interest from professors to teach criminal law and/or contracts in fall 2022. We are also accepting letters of interest from professors to teach civil procedure in spring 2023. We are open to visitors for one semester or for the entire 2022-23 academic year, depending on the applicant’s interests. Please send letters directly to Associate Dean Anthony Schutz, anthony@unl.edu.

New Law Schools Coming Soon in Jacksonville and High Point; Jacksonville Seeks Dean

After a bit of a lull, we are seeing a couple of universities creating new law schools.  Jacksonville University in Florida plans to open a downtown law school this fall, with the help of a $5 million contribution from the city. The University is searching for a dean.  Jacksonville was previously home to Florida Coastal Law School.   Meanwhile, High Point University in North Carolina announced it will open a law school starting in 2024.  

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The Expendable Americans in a Pandemic

This is a guest post by my friend Steven Harper. It originally appeared at Common Dreams and is cross-posted here under a Creative Commons license. Steve is a retired Kirkland & Ellis partner and adjunct professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

The Expendable Americans in a Pandemic

Every day, more than 1,000 Americans are still dying of COVID.

Steven Harper

March 18, 2022

On March 14, 2022, seven million Americans and their families became victims again. I'm one of them.

For the first time since the COVID pandemic began, Republicans jettisoned Congress's bipartisan approach of providing "no strings" emergency funds to battle the virus. Instead, the GOP insisted that Democrats find a way to pay for ongoing COVID testing, treatment, and vaccines. Otherwise, Republicans would scuttle the $1.5 trillion omnibus bill funding the entire federal government through September. The bill also included a $42 billion increase in military spending and almost $14 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine.

According to a study published in the JAMA Network on Dec. 28, 2021, the vulnerable population is at increased risk of "breakthrough COVID-19 infection that can have severe and even fatal outcomes."

The COVID funds were a rounding error—a $15.6 billion item, or 1 percent of the omnibus bill.

To assuage Republicans, Democrats pulled $7 billion from state aid allocated in a previous relief package. But pushback from governors and some House Democrats caused Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to remove COVID funding from the bill altogether.

The No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Thune (R-SD), tried to blame Democrats. "We had a chance to get that last week, and the House progressive wing blew it up," he said, adding, "They torpedoed it."

Given the GOP's new demand that Democrats find a way to pay for this round of the COVID plan, that's nonsense.

For immunocompromised citizens like me, vaccination offers some protection. But the science is clear: According to a study published in the JAMA Network on Dec. 28, 2021, the vulnerable population is at increased risk of "breakthrough COVID-19 infection that can have severe and even fatal outcomes." Individuals 65 and over account for 75 percent of all deaths, even though we have the highest COVID vaccination rates. Likewise, across all age ranges, more than seven million American adults live with compromised immune systems that impede vaccine effectiveness. In a recent study, vaccinated immunosuppressed patients accounted for 44 percent of breakthrough hospitalizations. And an even greater percentage—98 percent—were over 50, which makes me a double-dipper in the COVID pool.

Taboo Trades Podcast: Pandemics with Govind Persad

Co-hosts Samantha Spindler (UVA Law 2L), Madison White (UVA Law 3L), and I discuss pandemic responses with Govind Persad. Our focus is how to preserve personal choice in crisis response. 

Persad is an Assistant Professor at the University of Denver Sturm college of law. Persad’s research interests center on the legal and ethical dimensions of health insurance, health care financing, and markets in health care services, as well as professional ethics and the regulation of medical research.