Faculty News
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Corporate Practice Commentator’s “top 10” corporate & securities articles for 2024
The selected articles are: Contract Production in M&A Markets, 171 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1881-1924 (2023), Choi, Stephen J; Gulati, Mitu; Jennejohn, Mathew; Scott, Robert E. Corporate Racial Responsibility, 124 Colum. L. Rev. 361-430 (2024), Fletcher, Gina-Gail S; Lovelace, H. Timothy Jr. Gender and the Social Structure of Exclusion in U.S. Corporate Law, 90 U.…
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Columbia law professors explain why Trump’s “Title VI” demand letter to Columbia…
…violates both Title VI and the Constitution. One may hope this forms the basis for the legal action the university needs to file against Trump this week.
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Victory for UIC law professor Jason Kilborn in the 7th Circuit
Here. As Prof. Keith Whittington explains, this is a significant victory for academic freedom rights of faculty.
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More on the LSU law academic freedom case
MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 30–VARIOUS UPDATES ON THE CASE AT THE LINK, BELOW Here.
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Hawaii, LSU embroiled in academic freedom problems
The Hawaii case is clear-cut: the law school acted wrongfully and violated the academic freedom rights of the professor. The administrators at the University of Hawaii need a lesson in core AAUP academic freedom principles. The LSU case is ambiguous at this stage, but highly suspicious. Faculty do not have a right to discuss unrelated…
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Informative piece on the Katherine Franke case in the Washington Post
Here. From the end of the article: The letter giving that finding [of having violated the anti-discrimination policy] made no recommendation as to punishment. That would be for Franke’s dean to decide. But Franke knew, in that moment, that she wouldn’t wait to find out. It was no longer possible for her to function as…
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Amy Wax sues Penn in federal court
The complaint is here. According to the first paragraph: This suit principally challenges the speech policies of the University of Pennsylvania, which (1) are racially discriminatory, discriminating based on the race and/or protected class of both speakers and the subjects of the speech, and (2) violate core principles of the First Amendment, which the University…
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More on the Franke case
Steven Lubet, an emeritus law professor at Northwestern, has a piece at CHE with the unfortunate title, "No, Katherine Franke was not fired," which presumably was not his doing. It's an unfortuante title since, as Professor Lubet fully acknowledges, "There is no way to know the details of Franke’s negotiation with the Columbia administration, which…
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Amy Wax threatens to sue Penn if the sanctions are not lifted
Here's the lawyer's letter. The breach of contract claim is straightforward, and she should prevail on it given the AAUP principles to which the university has committed itself: as I've noted before, the University has made clear they are punishing her for her lawful but offensive extramural speech. The letter's claim of race discrimination strikes…
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Trends in lateral hiring, 2019-2024
Lawprof Derek Muller analyzes data from this blog. It would be interesting to see how the lateral numbers compare to faculty size. Bear in mind, too, that a school like Harvard, which had "zero" lateral moves from Harvard to another school in the last five years, did have many retirements, and sometimes lateral hires are…
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NY law firm drops client, Columbia lawprof Katherine Franke, when her views attract public criticism…
…and the partner who was representing Professor Franke quits the firm, while Profesor Frank has filed an ethics complaint with the NY Bar. Pretty slimy way to treat a client!
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JD/PhDs by PhD field
Andrew Granato, a JD/PhD student at Yale, has compiled data from PrawfsBlog about all PhDs hired in law schools over the last 15 years, more or less. This includes folks hired into non-US law schools. Here's the breakdown by PhD discipline: Political Science (71) Economics (65) History (59) Philosophy (48) Sociology (32) STEM fields (19)…
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Academic freedom abolished at Penn
The University of Pennsylvania has sanctioned Amy Wax for her offensive extramural speech, even though it is clearly protected under the applicable AAUP standards governing extramural speech (earlier coverage). (The sanction does not involve revocation of tenure, but rather a substantial financial penalty. I assume Professor Wax will sue for breach of contract.) As the…
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More controversy at Berkeley Law
Students are protesting a class on "anti-semitism and law" by leading corporate law expert Steven Davidoff Solomon, primarily because of an op-ed he wrote encouraging employers not to hire his "anti-semitic" students. Let me comment on this purely from the standpoint of the academic freedom rights of faculty: (1) Davidoff's op-ed was inappropriate: as we…
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Michigan Law wins summary judgment in discrimination lawsuit brought by faculty member
We noted the case two years ago, and it has now been resolved in favor of the University of Michigan Law School and its former Dean Mark West. The court describes emails from Dean West to Professor Beny "as immature, awkward, and unprofessional, but likely not harassing," but also held that, "The undisputed facts in…
If you were the head recruiter for a professional basketball team, would you require height and weight measurements for prospective…