The Faculty Lounge

You've Really Got a Hold on Me

"You've Really Got a Hold on Me" was written by Smokey Robinson in 1962. Said to have been influenced by Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me," it was a million-seller for the Miracles. The most famous cover was by the Beatles, and there have been plenty of others (often under the slightly less grammatical title, "You Really Got a Hold on Me").

CFP (deadline extended): Re-Imagining Trans in Contemporary South Asia--Moving With, Against, and Beyond the State (Transgender Studies Quarterly, Duke University Press)

Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2024

 

Guest Editors: Claire Pamment and Jeffrey A. Redding 

 

For over a decade now, trans activism and trans representation has accelerated in social, legal, political, cultural, and artistic realms across South Asia. While these movements have animated possibilities for trans lives and trans justice, so too have they often perpetuated narrow modes of legitimacy, reproducing hierarchies around gender, class, caste, language, religion, kinship, labor, sexuality, nation, and global capital. Violence against khwaja sira-hijra-kothi-trans persons is rampant, surveillance and policing have ensued, and legislative achievements have been tenuous at best. For example, in 2023, Pakistan’s groundbreaking Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act from 2018 was deemed largely “unIslamic” and unenforceable by Pakistan’s Federal Shariat Court writing in global anti-gender registers, and India’s 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act has mobilized a range of dissent across political, legal, civil, and activist spaces. This special issue invites inquiry into the accelerations and disruptions to trans movements alongside feminist, anti-caste, labor, LGBTQI+ and other mobilizations not only in the contemporary moment but also situating these movements—their histories and genealogies—in and across the changing borders of South Asia.

 

We build upon a robust body of scholarship that complicates a linear view of state recognition and rights, rather than rendering them as uniformly progressive or as failures, and seeing them as mediated by a host of factors: globalization, NGOization, regional relations and the active participation of khwaja sira-hijra-kothi-trans persons (Dutta 2012, Hossain 2021, Jain and DasGupta 2021, Reddy 2006, Roy 2022). At a moment of further upheavals—neoliberal and/or religious nationalisms, fractured international rights regimes, and democratic populism—we invite re-imaginings of trans in South Asia. We encourage contributions which think alongside queer and trans South Asian scholarship that challenges methodological nationalisms and dominant registers of legality and epidemiology, unsettles the logics of historical recuperation (Arondekar 2023), advances transregional analysis (Chiang 2021), couples aesthetics and politics (Gopinath 2018; Horton 2020; Hossain, Pamment, and Roy 2023; Kapadia 2019; Khubchandani 2020; Pamment and Roy 2023), or questions the subsumption into dominant Western theorizations of rights, identities, and representation.

 

We invite multidisciplinary contributions that foreground imaginative worlds of trans possibility in and across South Asia, including (but not limited to) the following themes:

Hiring Announcement: South Texas College of Law Houston

From a recent email message:

South Texas College of Law Houston (STCL) invites applications from both entry-level and experienced faculty for one or more full-time, tenure-track positions beginning in the 2025–26 academic year. Further, STCL invites applications for visiting assistant professor (VAP) positions beginning in the 2025-26 academic year. STCL's VAPs typically serve two years in a program designed to assist individuals to transition to academia by providing mentoring, teaching experience, and scholarly support.

While all candidates for tenure-track and VAP positions will be considered, we particularly seek candidates interested in teaching: Legal Research and Writing; Contracts; Criminal Law; Constitutional Law; Property; and Wills, Trusts, and Estates. We seek candidates with outstanding academic records who are committed to both excellence in teaching and sustained scholarly achievement.

STCL is committed to fulfilling our mission of providing a diverse body of students with the opportunity to obtain an exceptional legal education, preparing graduates to serve their community and the profession with distinction. STCL is known for its supportive and collegial culture and its commitment to student success. The school, located in downtown Houston, was founded in 1923 and is the oldest law school in the city. STCL is a private, nonprofit, independent law school, fully accredited by the American Bar Association and a member of the Association of American Law Schools, with 43 full-time, 60 adjunct, and six visiting professors serving a student body of 1109 full- and part-time students. The school is home to the most decorated advocacy program in the U.S. and the nationally recognized Frank Evans Center for Conflict Resolution. Additional information regarding South Texas is available at http://www.stcl.edu.

Please send letters of interest and resumes to:

Professor Joe Leahy

Faculty Appointments Committee, Chair

[email protected]

Tenured Law Professor Summarily Terminated at St. Thomas University College of Law

Some regular readers of TFL know that I occasionally represent law professors in employment-related disputes.  And if these cases are of potentially wider interest to the law professor community and my clients want their cases to be publicized, I have occasionally posted about those cases.  Well, I have a new law professor client, and I believe her case meets both criteria. 

Professor Lauren Gilbert has been a faculty member at St. Thomas University Benjamin L. Crump College of Law (in Miami, not to be confused with University of St. Thomas Law School in Minnesota) since 2002.  She received tenure and promotion to full professor in 2009.   After 22 years of employment, and 15 as a full tenured professor, on July 18, 2024 her career came to a jarring end when she became what I believe to be the first tenured law professor at an ABA-Accredited Law School to be treated as an at-will employee and summarily terminated.

On that day, STUCL Dean Tarlika Nuñez-Navarro served Professor Gilbert with a Notice of Termination.  The letter notified her that she was terminated, effective immediately. She was given one day to clear out her office and return University property and was escorted on and off campus by campus security.

STUCL, like all ABA law schools, is required to have an academic freedom and tenure policy (See ABA Standard 405(b)), and it did.  The policy with respect to the termination of tenured professors is set forth in the College of Law’s Faculty Handbook.  Professor Gilbert’s employment contract explicitly incorporated the terms of the Faculty Handbook, and the Faculty Handbook states that its terms are incorporated into each faculty member’s contract.   The provisions related to the termination of tenured faculty members are quite clear and unambiguous. 

There is a section in the Handbook entitled, “Tenure, Promotion and Reappointment.”   Under the subsection entitled “Full-Time Faculty” Paragraph I. Application, it states:  “These regulations shall govern all decisions on the promotion, tenure, retention and termination of members of the faculty of law of the University.” In the following paragraph, entitled “Contracts” it is stated: “These procedures shall be incorporated by reference into each faculty member’s contract.”

The Handbook contains a section, entitled “VII. Standards and Procedures for Termination of a Faculty Member for Cause.”  This section states, in pertinent part:

1. Tenured Faculty Members. Once tenure is acquired, a contract of continuing employment exists which may be terminated only for adequate cause.

In case of termination for cause of a continuous appointment, or where facts may be in dispute, the affected faculty member shall be informed in writing of any charges or facts and shall have the right to both the Informal and Formal procedures approved by the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the Association of American Law Schools (December 27, 1967), set forth in the Model Code of Procedure for Academic Freedom and Tenure 21 J.L. EDUCATION 222-34 (1968), and incorporated herein by reference.  Faculty members on continuous appointment who are dismissed for reasons not involving moral turpitude shall receive their salaries from the date of notification of dismissal, whether or not they are continued in their duties at the institution.

Citing these provisions, Professor Gilbert wrote to the University complaining that she had been wrongfully terminated and was entitled to these procedures.   She was referred to the University’s outside counsel.  At that point, she hired me.

CFP: Supporting the Mid-Career and Senior Scholar Panel

This just in:

Navigating the mid-career and senior stages of academic presents unique challenges and opportunities. This panel explores ways to support the mid-career and senior scholar. From addressing the complexities of post-tenure and promotion to fostering ongoing research excellence and maintaining well-being in the profession, our panelists will share insights, best practices, and resources to empower mid-career and senior scholars to continue to thrive in and be recognized for their scholarly pursuits.

If you are interested in being a panelist, please submit a description of the nuts and bolts advice, best practices, resources, etc. that you will present (maximum 400 words).  Specificity and details are appreciated. Please include your name and title, institution, and email address in your document and email your submission to [email protected] by August 30, 2024.  Please include "Submission for AALS Scholarship Section Mid-Career and Senior Scholar Panel" in your subject line when emailing your submission.

CFP: Rights, Regulation and Resistance: Parents, Children and the State

This just in:

The Section on Family and Juvenile Law is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for both the main program panel and the pedagogy panel at the upcoming AALS 2025 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. Both panels will be focused on the theme of Parents, Children, and the State.

Main Panel CFP: "Rights, Regulation, and Resistance: Parents, Children, and the State"

We invite submissions that explore a broad range of topics related to the regulation of parents, children, and families, including but not limited to the family regulation system, the evolving nature of parental rights, and children's rights both within and outside of the family. Some themes we hope to explore include: the state as a potential source of both harm and support; the tension between state intervention and family autonomy; the law's role in protecting children from both state-inflicted and family-inflicted harm; and parental rights as a weapon versus a tool of resistance. We welcome proposals from a diverse set of subject areas, including education law, family law, criminal law, constitutional law, and others. Please submit an abstract of 500 words or less to June Carbone ([email protected]), Stephanie Tang ([email protected]), and Sarah Lorr ([email protected]). We welcome submissions from junior faculty and scholars at all stages of their careers. The due date for submission is August 15, 2024.

 

Michael Hunter Schwartz Stepping Down as Dean of McGeorge

University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law has announced that Michael Hunter Schwartz will step down as dean at the end of the 2024-25 academic year.  Schwartz became dean in 2017.  He will return to the faculty in 2026 after a leave.

CFP: New Voices in Property Law: Junior Scholars Works-in-Progress Panel

This just in:

The AALS Section on Property Law is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for  the Section's "New Voices in Property Law: Junior Scholars Works-in-Progress Panel" during the 2025 AALS Annual Meeting  in San Francisco, California, on January 8-11, 2025. 

This works-in-progress program  brings together junior (pre-tenure or teaching for seven or fewer years) with senior property law scholars to give the junior scholars an opportunity to present and receive useful feedback on papers not yet  submitted for publication as of January 2025.  (Posting the draft paper on SSRN or the like is fine.)