This was posted elsewhere by someone claiming to be an AMSL 1L; it seems to have been overlooked, but is worth enshrining:
I don't think I've ever been more ashamed of the faculty at this school. The faculty quotes two paragraphs from the Dean's e-mail. Well, not all of it. Out of a total of 229 words, they cut out 8.
Look at the elipses in the first line.
The line quoted in the letter: "the Law School email, may not be used ... for any ... activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage..."
The unredacted line: "the Law School email, may not be used to promote the establishment of another law school or for any other activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage..."
(click on headline above to read the entire post)
This was posted elsewhere; it seems to be overlooked, but is worth enshrining:
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I don't think I've ever been more ashamed of the faculty at this school. The faculty quotes two paragraphs from the Dean's e-mail. Well, not all of it. Out of a total of 229 words, they cut out 8. From their letter on MoJ:
We repost here, as an example of this atmosphere, a portion of an email by AMSL's President and Dean Bernard Dobranski to the faculty sent on Wednesday, March 14 - eight days before the school was visited by an ABA fact-finder investigating complaints regarding the manner in which AMSL is being run.
[quotes e-mail from Dean]
The Dean of a (currently) ABA accredited law school is threatening to fire faculty whom he finds, in his own opinion, to be acting in any way he thinks might possibly cause harm to AMSL. He also appears to be demanding that faculty get prior approval for use of AMSL resources, thereby imposing prior restraint on their speech and conduct. Such threats (which were reiterated in a memo to all system distribution and alumni [html; PDF]) would be chilling in any atmosphere, let alone that at AMSL, which is under ABA investigation,
They bring up the ABA investigation, quote a letter about using school resources to undermine the law school, and go right back to talking about the ABA investigation. After first reading it, it sounds like the Dean is threatening anyone who uses school e-mail to contact the ABA regarding the investigation. But did anyone read the full e-mail? (to their credit, they did provide a link.) Look at the elipses in the first line.
The line quoted in the letter: the Law School email, may not be used ... for any ... activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage,
The unredacted line:
the Law School email, may not be used to promote the establishment of another law school or for any other activities or purposes that are intended to or are reasonably likely to undermine or damage
Yes, a group of professors ("the Association of Ave Maria Law Faculty") sent an e-mail out to the entire school, students, and alumni, on the school server, letting everyone know that they were looking into starting their own law school! Would ANY other business allow its employees to use company resources to recruit for and tout a potential break-away, competing business?
Then they try to spin the Dean's response as a "restraint" on speech. The full post on MoJ is 1,968 words, excluding header and footer. Why did they have to cut out 8? Because those 8 words show the real light that the Dean's e-mail was written in. It wasn't meant to chill speech on the eve of an ABA investigation, it was a response to a group of employees using school resources to announce their own competing school. Any sympathy I had for the professors is gone. Gone gone gone. How the hell am I supposed to feel bad for them when they blatantly misrepresent the facts like that? Heck, I'll say it: they lied. They couched the e-mail in a discussion on the ABA investigation, and took out just enough to show that that e-mail had nothing to do with the ABA. These are the champions of Catholic legal education? When they say that they are being denied academic freedom and that a true Catholic mission isn't being cultivated at the Law School, THIS is their alternative?
Ave 1L 05.01.07 - 2:05 pm
BSR said...
ReplyDeleteThis email from the Dean reminds me of when we used to receive similar guidance during the accreditation process. The administration (including Prof. Falvey) used to exhort us to take our complaints "in house" first, before gripping to the ABA. There were no cries then that such requests were restraints on academic freedom.
May 29, 2007 10:51 AM
The administration (including Prof. Falvey) used to exhort us to take our complaints "in house" first, before gripping to the ABA. There were no cries then that such requests were restraints on academic freedom.
ReplyDeleteOh, please...when taking the beef in house meets with nothing but BS, what then?
Theoretically speaking: could a violation of the Dean's very reasonable mandate be the basis for firing a tenured professor?
ReplyDelete