GMU law school's name change to honor Scalia should be delayed, says faculty senate
Justice Antonin Scalia.
The ongoing battle over renaming the George Mason University’s law school to honor the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia intensified Wednesday when the faculty senate demanded answers about the influence of private donors on academic integrity, such as tying funds for scholarships to the continued service of the law school’s dean, the Washington Post reports.
The faculty senate approved two resolutions, which come on the heels of a previous resolution in April expressing their “deep concern” over the decision. The university president, Angel Cabrera, responded to the initial resolution with a letter to the faculty on May 1, defending the acceptance of $50 million from the Charles Koch Foundation over the past decade. In his letter, he wrote that rejecting a gift in honor of a U.S. Supreme Court justice “would be inconsistent with our values of diversity and freedom of thought.”
The first resolution approved by the faculty senate on Wednesday questioned the wisdom of creating two new centers at the law school and hiring 12 new professors at a time when enrollment is declining and resources are limited, and notes that the grant agreements in question “link funding of the promised scholarships to the ongoing service of the current Dean, Dr. Henry N. Butler.”
The resolution called for a delay in renaming the school so the faculty senate’s concerns can be addressed; to have a faculty senate committee draw up a detailed conflict-of-interest policy concerning private donations; and for a faculty senate committee to handle approval of the creation of new centers and oversee research at existing ones.
Final approval for the name change would come through Virginia’s State Council of Higher Education, and its spokesman said this week that it will make a recommendation at its May 16-17 meeting.
A second resolution asked for answers to questions about the university’s policy on private donations and questioned whether the policy had been breached.
The law school received a $10 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation this spring and a $20 million donation from an anonymous donor who asked that the law school be renamed to honor Justice Scalia. Butler, the dean whose employment is linked to the retention of scholarship funding, reportedly has close ties to the Koch family.
A faculty senate committee examining the Koch’s relationship with the university for four years said the school has refused to provide details of grant agreements with the Koch Foundation, the Associated Press reported last month.
The first resolution was passed on Wednesday by a 25 to 14 vote and the second passed by a voice vote.
Lloyd Cohen, a member of the faculty senate and teacher in the law school, criticized the measures, the Washington Post reports, saying the faculty senate used “weasel words” such as “concerns” about public perceptions to disguise its own assault on academic freedom.
“And let’s not kid ourselves—the whole world knows what is going on here. If this were a gift from George Soros to create the Harry Blackman Law School we would not be here today. The political agenda of this body is transparent.”
