updates on depaul and university of illinois scandals.

[cynthia]

While we're all still feeling gross about Mark Sargent with prostitutes, let's take a moment to update ourselves on two more lingering law school administration scandals.

TaxProf is reporting that DePaul interim dean, state appellate judge Warren Wolfson, has rejected requests from some faculty members for his resignation. 

Wolfson, who was appointed without any involvement by the faculty after the university provost ousted Dean Weissenberger for being inadequate, wrote the following letter to those who requested he step down:

I have considered your oral and written requests that I resign my appointment as Interim Dean of the College of Law.  I respectfully decline.
You said in your letter that harm has been done to the law school's good name.  If so, the best way to repair the damage is to let go of whatever has occurred and work with me to enhance the school's future.
I assure you my first and only priority as interim dean will be to build on the accomplishments I inherit and to work to elevate the law school's standing in the national legal community. I will need the wholehearted cooperation, advice, and support of the faculty.  All of it.  When it comes time to sleect a permanent dean the faculty will, as President Holtschneider has promised, "play a full and traditional role in the search for a new dean."
I made only one commitment when I accepted the appointment. I said I would do my best to make this a law school the students and alumni can be proud of. With your help, I will keep that promise.

No movement yet on the various Facebook groups created to support ousted Dean Weissenberger.

The faculty over at University of Illinois has been busy with a letter-writing campaign, as well. A three-page letter to the Chicago Tribune, criticizing the paper for, er, over-criticizing the school made its way onto the paper's opinion pages. U of I recently made news when its law school's admissions office was revealed (by the Tribune) to be engaging in preferential admissions policies that resulted in the admission of underqualifed politically-connected students.

The letter insists that preferential admissions happen at many public universities (stating that none of the signers had ever worked at a university where they didn't happen), and even charges the Chicago Tribune to deny that its senior staff has never used the paper's reputation to assist in gaining a golden ticket to a university. 

The letter is co-signed by 16 faculty and staff, and has been identified (by me) as an "angry missive."

Comments

[anticlouting activist]

The self-justification and rationalization of clouting from the 16 U of I law professors is objectionable in so many ways that it nearly defies understanding. Sadly, these professors believe that the status quo--countless clouted admission--is acceptable even when their own dean said that clouted admissions harmed the ranking of their own law school even before the clouting scandal became public. This because the clouted admits had such low test scores and GPAs that they brought down the average scores the law school was trying to improve in order to raise its ranking. It is sad that these professors justify a system that even those directly involved have repudiated and said needs to be dismantled.