Law Professors
Law Profs Threaten Boycott of Meeting Due to Hotel Owner’s Views
Posted Aug 5, 2008, 08:19 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Updated: Four groups representing law professors and legal writing professionals are threatening to boycott the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools because of the views of the man who owns the hotel where the meeting may take place.
The meeting is slated to be held in January at the San Diego Manchester Grand Hyatt. Its owner, Douglas Manchester, has donated $125,000 to an initiative to ban same-sex marriages in California, the National Law Journal reports.
The National Law Journal article lists the groups threatening a boycott as the Society of American Law Teachers, the Legal Writing Institute, the AALS Section on Legal Writing Research and Reasoning, and the AALS Section on Teaching Methods. The groups say Manchester’s views conflict with their policies of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation.
But the executive director of the Society of American Law Teachers, Hazel Weiser, told the ABA Journal that her group has not threatened a boycott, even though it has objected to the meeting location. SALT is seeking a change in location, and if that's not possible, it is asking AALS to limit activities at the hotel.
Updated at 5:30 a.m. on Aug. 8 to include comments from Hazel Weiser of SALT.
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Comments
Posted by J.D. - 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 27 minutes ago
So much for tolerating diversity.
The AALS is a childish organization that tells law schools not to serve JAG officers coffee when they come to recruit on campus.
What a joke.
Posted by Mr. CT - 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 12 minutes ago
I think it depends how you view it. Most people would not hold a business meeting at a restaurant if the owner refused to seat someone based on race, gender, etc, so why should they patronize a place where a person whose cause is equally vile to them will profit? Treating JAG officers with disrespect is childish as they have no real power to change how the army operates, but in this case, the hotel owner donated a very substantial sum of money to a cause that they don’t support. I fail to see a problem with how they acted. They’re not required to do business with anyone. Now if they refused to help a student who had the views of the hotel owner, I think a very good argument could be made that they acted inappropriately and should be punished.
Posted by J.D. - 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 19 hours, 51 minutes ago
^ I hear you. I guess my bigger problem is that the AALS pushes its views onto law schools.
The AALS can pick and choose which causes “they don’t support” as they please. But because law schools are pretty much required to be a part of AALS to be accredited, it seems that schools are being “commandeered” by an activist group.
And now law schools treat JAG officers like crap out of fear of reprisal from AALS.
Where does this commandeering stop? Can AALS direct schools to make life difficult for judges it disagrees with (who might recruit on campus)? Can they demand that the Federalist Society have no presence on campus?
They’re an activist group posing as a “accreditation” organization, and they make money off us all. Their activist bent has lessened their credibility.
Posted by ofichief - 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 21 minutes ago
You guys are missing the big picture, the guy owns the hotel, he can refuse to serve anyone he damn well pleases. If they don’t like his views, take your meeting somewhere else. He has first amendment rights just like all else do including the AALS, but they don’t want to respect his right to voice his own opinion, they want to stifle it, just like Archie stifled Edith!
Posted by KC - 3 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 14 hours, 26 minutes ago
J.D.—
The AALS is not an accreditation organization; it is a voluntary association of law schools. The accrediting body for law schools is the American Bar Association.
The Legal Writing Institute is a non-profit organization unaffiliated with AALS, although it has historically sponsored an annual award ceremony at the AALS meeting. It has adopted a non-discrimination policy, and believes that spending its money in a hotel owned by Mr. Manchester would be a violation of that non-discrimination policy.
Mr. Manchester can spend his money in whatever way he wishes. But if LWI were to spend its money on an award reception in his hotel, the profits from that reception would just give him more money to spend on causes that violate the LWI non-discrimination policy. Just as Mr. Manchester is free to spend his money as he sees fit, so is LWI.
Posted by Max Lybbert - 3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 19 hours, 24 minutes ago
The point is that Proposition 8 has absolutely nothing to do with legal writing (unless the AALS is only upset about how the proposition is drafted).
People who joined the AALS because they want to improve the state of the art with regard to legal writing may have different political views. It makes as much sense for the AALS to take a stand on this issue as it would if the National Association of Industrial Meteorologists took a stand on it.
Besides, how does punishing the hotel make sense when the AALS is apparently upset with the private actions of one of the hotel’s owners?
Posted by J.D. - 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 39 minutes ago
KC—
The AALS has law school administrators by the balls. They are scared out of their minds that they might upset the AALS by treating JAG officers too nicely.
Losing AALS membership is akin to losing accreditation according to most law school administrators; I know this firsthand. As such, the AALS operates like an accreditation organization.
Posted by J.D. - 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 29 minutes ago
HERE’S AN EXCERPT from the AALS “guidelines” which instruct schools on how to follow the government’s JAG policies as narrowly as possible. I forgot; not only is coffee not allowed, free parking for JAG officers is also a problem for the AALS::
“In addition to the above, the AALS response to Solomon II included a “duty to ameliorate” the “detrimental effects” of this newly-provided access. This duty to ameliorate is not carefully defined in the AALS guidelines but logic dictates that no greater access than is required by law need be, or should be, granted; as a matter of principle, providing more access than is necessary under the terms of the law would magnify correspondingly the detrimental effects of such access, spiraling the need for amelioration.
“Because excess or gratuitous access unavoidably undercuts amelioration, the negative impact of excess access on the substantive duty to ameliorate provides a third reason for careful tailoring of any new military access.
“The main point of this Report therefore is that reasonable access does not dictate equal access. Though schools should conduct themselves professionally regarding the military on this issue, the language of the law does not obligate schools to do anything else beyond providing reasonable access; within the bounds of professional conduct, reasonable access does not in the Section’s view imply that schools are obligated to provide other free services or amenities (such as, perhaps, scheduling appointment times, collecting and transmitting resumes, free parking, endless supplies of coffee, snacks or lunches and the like). Beyond providing the “reasonable access” mentioned in the law, schools should avoid entanglement with military on-campus activities and devote their energies and resources to maximizing amelioration.“