Lawyers, law schools and law firms have long been thought of as the people and places that love a good principled argument. But that reputation is slipping. Everyone has been talking about Paul Weiss’s cowardice in the face of the Trump administration, but they aren’t the only legal staple that capitulated instead of fighting back — Columbia also made headlines for folding instead of fighting. We know that their respective foils are Perkins Coie and Georgetown — Perkins Coie doubled up on the defense and added Williams & Connolly to their firepower while Georgetown leaned heavily on a religious defense to fight the administrations calls to put a bullet in DEI programs.
Besides those two, most law firms and law schools appear to be biting their tongue to see how things pan out before they make a stand. Thing is, you can’t be neutral on a moving train; there needs to be vocal resistance and action in the face of what the administration is doing, and the American Constitution Society is targeting law school deans to draw a sand in the line. From ACS:
Law school deans have a key role right now. They must clear their calendars, stop fundraising, stop meeting with students, get their lawyers ready, tell their Presidents that they are willing to be fired rather than stay silent, coordinate with each other, and come out with a strong and clear statement condemning the attack on the rule of law and refusing to capitulate to any demands from the administration that would undermine their institution’s academic freedom or the rule of law.
Individual tweets and email chain letters are frankly not that important or effective; institutions and those that lead them must speak up, and there is no more obvious institution than law schools and no leader more obvious than law school deans.
A Skadden third year recently took such a stand. And while there’s no denying that it took a lot of heart, these sorts of stand-for-something-or-fire-me ultimatums need to hit a critical mass if they’re meant to cause change. That takes a lot of institutional players from a lot of institutions.
Law students aren’t the only ones that should be pushing their deans to take a stand against the administration skirting the rule of law — law professors should be pushing to know if the institution will support them too. Past the BS about tenure and campus free speech, don’t forget that the institutional backlash and lawsuits LSU law professor Ken Levy facing were largely because he had the gall to throw a spare F Bomb at President Trump. A couple sentences was enough for him to kick him out of his classroom and spur court room dates deciding if he’d be let back in to teach. The only difference between your name gracing headlines and his could be some gunner that happens to record your offhand comments in a lecture. Wouldn’t you want to know that if push comes to shove your employer wouldn’t leave you to fend for yourself? And if they ultimately do, don’t you want a paper trail that shows you relied on them to have a spine?
Reach out to us at tips@abovethelaw.com to let us know which law schools are taking a stand for the rule of law. And if your school takes a non-committal approach to placate without changing anything substantive, let us know too.
Law School Deans Have a Moral Imperative [ACS Law]
Georgetown Law To Ed Martin: F All The Way Off
Perkins Coie Drags Trump Administration Clear To Hell In New Lawsuit
Law Professor Ordered Back In Classroom (Again)
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
The post The American Constitution Society Calls On Quiet Law School Deans To Speak Up appeared first on Above the Law.
Lawyers, law schools and law firms have long been thought of as the people and places that love a good principled argument. But that reputation is slipping. Everyone has been talking about Paul Weiss’s cowardice in the face of the Trump administration, but they aren’t the only legal staple that capitulated instead of fighting back — Columbia also made headlines for folding instead of fighting. We know that their respective foils are Perkins Coie and Georgetown — Perkins Coie doubled up on the defense and added Williams & Connolly to their firepower while Georgetown leaned heavily on a religious defense to fight the administrations calls to put a bullet in DEI programs.
Besides those two, most law firms and law schools appear to be biting their tongue to see how things pan out before they make a stand. Thing is, you can’t be neutral on a moving train; there needs to be vocal resistance and action in the face of what the administration is doing, and the American Constitution Society is targeting law school deans to draw a sand in the line. From ACS:
Law school deans have a key role right now. They must clear their calendars, stop fundraising, stop meeting with students, get their lawyers ready, tell their Presidents that they are willing to be fired rather than stay silent, coordinate with each other, and come out with a strong and clear statement condemning the attack on the rule of law and refusing to capitulate to any demands from the administration that would undermine their institution’s academic freedom or the rule of law.
Individual tweets and email chain letters are frankly not that important or effective; institutions and those that lead them must speak up, and there is no more obvious institution than law schools and no leader more obvious than law school deans.
A Skadden third year recently took such a stand. And while there’s no denying that it took a lot of heart, these sorts of stand-for-something-or-fire-me ultimatums need to hit a critical mass if they’re meant to cause change. That takes a lot of institutional players from a lot of institutions.
Law students aren’t the only ones that should be pushing their deans to take a stand against the administration skirting the rule of law — law professors should be pushing to know if the institution will support them too. Past the BS about tenure and campus free speech, don’t forget that the institutional backlash and lawsuits LSU law professor Ken Levy facing were largely because he had the gall to throw a spare F Bomb at President Trump. A couple sentences was enough for him to kick him out of his classroom and spur court room dates deciding if he’d be let back in to teach. The only difference between your name gracing headlines and his could be some gunner that happens to record your offhand comments in a lecture. Wouldn’t you want to know that if push comes to shove your employer wouldn’t leave you to fend for yourself? And if they ultimately do, don’t you want a paper trail that shows you relied on them to have a spine?
Reach out to us at [email protected] to let us know which law schools are taking a stand for the rule of law. And if your school takes a non-committal approach to placate without changing anything substantive, let us know too.
Law School Deans Have a Moral Imperative [ACS Law]
Georgetown Law To Ed Martin: F All The Way Off
Perkins Coie Drags Trump Administration Clear To Hell In New Lawsuit
Law Professor Ordered Back In Classroom (Again)
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
