George Mason law profs support name change to Scalia Law, apologize for university faculty
Justice Antonin Scalia.
The law faculty at George Mason University doesn’t have a problem with changing the school’s name to the Antonin Scalia Law School.
The law school’s tenured and tenure-track faculty on Thursday approved a resolution supporting the renaming, report the Washington Post and Bloomberg Big Law Business. The vote was unanimous, with one abstention.
“Naming the law school after Justice Scalia is a fitting tribute to his memory,” the resolution says. “Individual members of the law school faculty hold different views about Justice Scalia’s jurisprudence, but all recognize that he was among the most consequential figures in the history of the Supreme Court.”
The resolution takes issue with contrary resolutions approved by the faculty senate of the university expressing “deep concern” about the renaming decision and demanding answers about the influence of private donors.
Spurring the name change is a $20 million gift from a private, anonymous donor who requested the name change. That donor, along with the Charles Koch Foundation, which recently gave $10 million to the law school, specified that the university must notify them if the current law dean is replaced.
The law faculty resolution says “minimal conditions” placed on the gifts are appropriate, and the donors did not request any authority to interfere with faculty governance or the selection of a law school dean.
“The unprecedented nature of the faculty senate’s baseless criticisms of the gifts suggests an ideological bias,” the resolution says. “To all onlookers, but especially to the donors of the two gifts and to the Scalia family, the law faculty expresses its regret at the unprofessional and dissembling conduct of the faculty senate.”
