Five Profs Resign at American Justice Law School, Call for Dean’s Ouster
Five professors at the American Justice School of Law in Paducah, Ky.—about one-fourth of the faculty—resigned effective Friday, saying they won’t come back until the dean of the for-profit school submits his resignation.
Dean Paul Hendrick has been named in a $120 million lawsuit by more than 30 students. The plaintiffs claim Hendrick, the school’s majority shareholder, and other administrators sought “to enrich themselves at the expense of students,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
The suit alleges administrators applied for loans in students’ names and then withheld some of the money, and interfered with students’ ability to transfer to new schools by lowering their grades and delaying disclosure that the ABA had denied accreditation.
The school charges $13,250 a semester for tuition, but some students said there was no toilet paper in the restrooms, copiers and printers often had no paper, and the lights were once turned off in the library because the school couldn’t pay its bills.
Hendrick has previously denied the charges and claimed that two law professors were behind the complaints so they could reduce the value of the school and buy it in a hostile takeover.
