Law Profs Back Embattled Ave Maria Faculty

Law Schools

Posted Sep 13, 2007, 01:05 pm CST
By Martha Neil

Updated: A continuing faculty controversy at Ave Maria School of Law that has become focused, in part, on a planned campus move from Michigan to Florida is heating up.

Faculty say they have been treated outrageously by the current administration, and Christian legal academics are rallying in their support. In a lengthy statement published yesterday by Mirror of Justice, a Catholic legal theory blog, 16 law professors from well-known institutions throughout the country call for Ave Maria faculty concerns to be taken seriously.

However, in an interview today with ABAJournal.com, Bernard Dobranski, the law school's president and dean, says "a small group of disgruntled faculty members who don't want to see the law school relocate" have magnified academic freedom and governance issues. Although he can't discuss personnel issues, he says the outside academics don't know "what's going on here."

Asserting that "what has happened at AMSL appears to us to violate core Catholic norms" as well as "several procedural norms of the secular academy," the MOJ statement urges reconsideration of controversial decisions to seek tenure revocation—and suspend without pay—one founding faculty member, as well as to deny tenure to, and suspend with pay, two junior faculty members.

These actions—as well as alleged monitoring of the entire faculty's e-mail and computers—reportedly were taken in response to faculty complaints of being excluded from law school governance. Those targeted for adverse tenure action allegedly were particularly active in efforts to seek a greater governance role, according to an April 30 Association of Ave Maria Law Faculty statement cited in yesterday's MOJ post.

“The hour is not too late for [AMSL’s Dean and Board] to model for the legal and academic communities the essence of a Catholic Christian law school," the MOJ statement of support concludes, adopting the language of an MOJ contributor. "In fact, [we] would suggest [that they] have a better, clearer opportunity to mirror Christ now than when [they] first began because the only path left open is through the cross. It may not be what [they] had planned, but God works in mysterious ways.”

The controversy is a major reason why most of the faculty reportedly is not planning to move with the law school from its current Ann Arbor, Mich., campus to a new southwest Florida campus, creating a potential ABA accreditation issue. Details are provided by the Naples Daily News and an earlier ABAJournal.com post.

Dobranski, though, points to five new faculty hires at the law school as evidence that it will not have any difficulty recruiting academics to take the place of those who depart.

(Updated at 09-13-07 at 3:40 p.m., CDT.)

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Posted by Plain Truth - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes ago

The attitude of the dissidents is best expressed here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/cryder/8922132426420177918/#261382

The dissident faculty want to grab the Board of Governors’ legitimate authority.

And they have poisoned the campus by creating unprofessional, uncharitable sycophants like those a fumare.
Posted by Kevin Lee - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 20 hours, 10 minutes ago

Of the five recent hires that Dean Dobranski cites as evidence of AMSL’s ability to attract qualified faculty, only one is tenure-track. None of the faculty have publicly expressed interest in relocating to Florida. Also, what he refers to as “a small group of disgruntled faculty” was in fact an 11-3 majority that voted no confidence in his leadership.
Posted by A Few Facts - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 19 hours, 41 minutes ago

Dean Dobranski has a way with words, not a good or honest way, but a way with words. Only one tenure track hire. One “visitor” actually is an adjunct who is doing extra work. One of the visitors was rejected by the faculty after his performance at the interview, another was rejected very early in the hiring process. I am sure they are very nice human beings, but it really is too bad that Dean Dobranski is taking such advantage of people who need him for green cards or because they are desparate for work. As to the “they want to control the law school” line, faculty were enticed to teach at Ave by the assurance that they would be going to a genuine, ABA accredited academic institution—that doesn’t mean running things, but it does mean being shown some basic level of respect and playing a substantive role in faculty governance, as well as having their academic freedom respected. Without those things the only people who will take the pay cut to become a professor are those who need the green card or are desperate for any kind of job. Oh, and by the way, if these professors just wanted to stay in Michigan, why did so many take jobs out of state—in Mississippi and North Carolina, for example, just to get away from Dean Dobranski and Chairman and Chancellor Monaghan? These two can not run a law school, other than into the ground. This would be funny if so many people (especially students just starting their legal careers) weren’t being hurt.
Posted by A. Nonymous - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 18 hours, 59 minutes ago

One wonders if Dobranski knows what is going on at AMSL. On his watch, the school in terms of student qualifications has gone from being competitive with the top 50 lawschools in the country to being soundly in the bottom fifty. In a four year period, the median LSAT scores have systematically slid six points from their peak in 2003.

If one takes the measure of a Dean by the institutional and student quality that he is able to maintain, Dobranski is a miserable failure. That the school is under investigation for conditions arguably stemming from his incompetence is not surprising.
Posted by A. Marsh - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 18 hours, 15 minutes ago

Right, the outside faculty don’t know anything and everything is peachy-keen at AMSL,

The disgruntled faculty don’t have any merit to their claims that something is rotten. Yet 9 out of 19 regular tenure-track faculty members either leave or are driven out by the Dean, and referred to as “dissdents”. The faculty, students and alumni have all voted no confidence in the Dean, The 2L class loses 30% of its most qualified students, the ABA at every turn has found reason to continue its investigation of Dobranski’s leadership, the Board of Governors are climbing over one another to resign, Tom Monaghan refers to faculty who happen to disagree with his self-interested manipulation of a school as “academic terrorists”; the only power that Dobranski has over his subordinates is belittlement and intimidation.

I guess its going to be a great trip to Naples.
Posted by Dom Inus - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 17 hours, 36 minutes ago

And yet the school lives on continuing to fulfill its mission.

So sad to see that the best the dissidents can do is to tear down that which they cannot control in the most un-Christian manner.

By any objective Christian standard, the dissident professors should be ashamed of the things being said and done on their behalf by their former students at www.fumare.us

That website is the embodiment of all that the dissident faculty stands for - yet its about as reliable and Catholic as Rosie O’Donnell’s blog, falsified wikipedia entries and Ken Olberman’s foolish excuse for a TV show.
Posted by M. Aria - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 8 hours, 15 minutes ago

What is truly most amazing is that despite everything that has happened, Bernard Dobranski has the gall to remain as Dean, and the Board of Governors doesn’t force him out. The school is going down in flames, but the BOG just watches quietly.

Even if “the dissidents” and “terrorists”—as Dobranski and Monaghan like to call them—are completely wrong, every professional Dean in the US, except the Dean and President of AMSL, would at this point of chaos and dismal moral resign, or be forced to resign, in the best interests of the institution.

Why doesn’t Mr. Dobransk resigni? The only explanation can be precisely because the allegations are true and the Board is controleed by the manipulative Monaghan. Tom Monaghan couldn’t find any other reputable person to do the dirty work Mr. Dobranski is prepared to sully himself with.
Posted by FreedomBlogger - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 5 hours, 54 minutes ago

There are stubborn facts:
(1) A substantial majority of the faculty voted no-confidence in the leadership.
(2) The Board failed to consider the merits of the claims, failed to investigate, failed to independently evaluate the actions of the Dean.
(3) Members of the faculty filed a complaint to the ABA.
(4) The ABA found that the Dean’s actions were out of compliance with ABA standards.
(5) A significant portion of the Catholic legal education community beyond Ave Maria has expressed its concern regarding the dean’s actions.
(5) Incredibly, to date, the Board has not reviewed the merits of the no-confidence vote or the concerns raised by the larger community.
Given these facts, it would seem that the Board has abandoned its fiduciary duties to responsibly govern the school.
Posted by MES - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 46 minutes ago

As a Catholic, who would love to see a new Catholic law school flourish in this country, I unfortunately know that it will not be AMSL.
The school is doomed to fail because of Mr. Monaghan… His low grade pizza money will not last forever and thus without some institutional cohesion, such infighting and battling will be commonplace. Catholic schools in this world are founded by religious orders, with true principles and unified visions. Further, as an aside, If T. Monaghan were truly Catholic he would use his money to help the poor… Instead he builds guady campuses that attract naive, soon to be closed minded zealots who will never survive in the real world.
Posted by Reality Check - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 1 day, 4 hours, 18 minutes ago

Here are 2 cases that demonstrate the bull-headed arrogance and unreasonableness of the celebrated faculty martyr, Steve Safranek (and his willingness to apparently abuse his clients to further his own personal views, much as he seems to be abusing his students and colleagues by stirring up an emotional fervor in order for his personal views to “win” in the end):

MacFarlane v. MacFarlane, Ohio App. 8 Dist.,2006. (June 22, 2006) - “Succinctly, Wife argues that she and Husband were married in the Catholic Church, and both agreed to be bound by Catholic canon law regarding their marriage and any issues regarding their children. Accordingly, she contends, the trial court should have ceded its jurisdiction to a canonical court for resolution of all issues regarding the parties’ divorce. Wife’s argument is without merit….The record indicates that Wife fully participated in the divorce litigation for nearly one year before filing her request to arbitrate this matter. Not only does Wife’s action in filing her complaint refute her argument that the parties had agreed to arbitrate their marital disputes, but her significant participation in this case after it was filed waives any right to arbitration. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Wife’s motion….The court further found that due to her obsession with the divorce litigation and the issue of home schooling, Wife just did “not get it” with regard to her behavior and the children. The court identified several of Wife’s inappropriate behaviors with respect to her children: bringing the children to the courthouse to pass out a book she had written about the injustice of the court system and her divorce; telling the youngest child that “daddy broke up our home” and “the devil lives in daddy;” blatantly violating a court order to enroll the children in a traditional school, which caused the children to enter school one month late and hampered their transition from home schooling to traditional schooling; continuing to nurse Cleutus, contrary to medical advice, even though his teeth were rotting; and, refusing to engage in any written communication with Husband regarding the children. The court also noted that it had “great concern about the emotional stability of Mrs. Macfarlane.” (This client was the vehicle used to unsuccessfully test Safranek’s odd ideas about marriage, divorce and homeschooling, see http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/8/2006/2006-ohio-3155.pdf)

Maki v. Laakko 88 F.3d 361 at 366 (C.A.6 (Mich.),1996) - “Safranek is right that this is a claim of first impression, perhaps because it is a claim of such breathtaking audacity that no one ever dared to raise it before. Certainly, no case, article, or treatise discussing ‘familial status’ discrimination ever thought to contemplate the idea that treating a child the same as other persons could be discrimination. All of the cases and commentators discuss the opposite possibility: that a landlord would refuse to rent or charge more if there were two adults and a child than if there were three adults.“ (This client was the vehicle used to unsuccessfully test Safranek’s odd ideas about housing discirmination, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=6th/960192p.html )
Posted by Reality Check - 1 year, 2 months, 1 week, 1 day, 4 hours, 13 minutes ago

By the way: I don’t think Safranek has ever litigated any other cases other than these two, although he might have litigated a handful more (I invite those that know to post that information). Nevertheless, his track record seems utterly devastating both as to legal skill and reasonableness, stubbornness and arrogance.

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