Monday, July 26, 2010
ABA to Change Accreditation Standards Related to Tenure?
That's the point of this story about proposed changes to the ABA accreditation requirements, which had previously been taken to require a tenure system for academic faculty and some kind of job security for clinical and other faculty. Northwestern Law Dean David Van Zandt, who has led the charge, denies that this is an attack on tenure, though given that members of his own faculty describe him as conceiving of the Dean of a law school as the C.E.O. of a corportation, one has to wonder. Given some of the stupidity about tenure being peddled out there, one must also view these changes as a "sign of the times," and not a good sign at that.
UPDATE: A reader points out, quite correctly, that Dean Van Zandt was the head of the American Law Deans' Association at the time the issue of ABA accreditation arose, and so, by necessity, had to take the lead on the issue. But the involvement of the ALDA is indicative of widespread concern about the ABA's accreditation powers.
https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2010/07/aba-to-change-accreditation-standards-related-to-tenure.html