Does Tenure Impede Diversity?

Chronicle of Higher Education, Does Tenure Impede Diversity?:

Does tenure increase or decrease racial diversity in the faculty ranks? The question is imbued with fresh urgency on the heels of recent controversies involving Nikole Hannah-Jones and Cornel West.

Pose the question to some scholars, however, and they tend to bristle, but for starkly different reasons.

Peony Fhagen, senior associate dean of equity, inclusion, and faculty development at Colorado College, thinks it’s somewhat insidious to ask the question now, just as a critical mass of diverse academics are making professional progress. “You’re going to take this away when we come on board?” she asks.

In contrast, Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, cringes at the question because he doesn’t think it’s relevant. “Racial diversity should have no bearing on tenure decisions,” says Wood, a former tenured anthropologist, associate provost, and president’s chief of staff at Boston University. “Anyone who owes his or her tenure to such considerations has advanced in the academic world via racial discrimination and is rightly to be looked upon by colleagues as having vitiated academic standards.”

Some observers look to statistics for an answer.

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Judge Delays Katherine Magbanua's Trial To February 14 — 2,768 Days After Florida State Law Prof Dan Markel's Murder

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Judge OKs Delay in Magbanua Trial Until February 2022:

A judge on Monday postponed the next trial of Katherine Magbanua on charges she was involved in coordinating the murder of FSU law professor Dan Markel.

Circuit Judge Robert Wheeler cited a mountain of evidence and depositions her defense team needed to wade through as well as current COVID conditions in Tallahassee.

After a mistrial two years ago, the 36-year-old Magbanua now will face trial again on Feb. 14 on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder.

WCTV, Judge Delays Katherine Magbanua’s Trial

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Florida Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Pre-Tenure Lateral Tax Prof

University of Florida Levin College of Law seeks to hire multiple professors, across an array of fields, over the next several years as part of the university’s quest to become a top five public research institution. The University of Florida, located in Gainesville, FL, is currently the sixth best public research institution in the nation and the flagship university of the third largest state. ... The Appointments Committee welcomes applications from entry-level and pre-tenure lateral candidates writing in all areas of law. Successful candidates will have publication records, strong scholarly potential, commitment to excellence in teaching, and enthusiasm for creating inclusive environments for all students. Candidates must also have a JD, PhD, or equivalent degree in a related field. In reviewing applications, the Appointments Committee will consider long-term teaching needs in required and large enrollment classes, health law, tax, commercial law, election law, law and technology, and race and the law.

For further information, applicants may contact Professors Peter Molk and Wentong Zheng at appointments@law.ufl.edu.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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July 2021 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 7th Year In A Row

The July 2021 Florida bar passage rates by school are out. The overall pass rate for first-time takers is 71.6%, down 0.1 percentage point from last year. For the seventh year in a row, Florida International is #1. Here are the results for the 11 Florida law schools, along with each school's U.S. News ranking (Florida and overall):

Bar Pass Rank (Rate)	School	US News Rank FL (Overall)
1 (88.8%)	Florida Int'l	4 (88)
2 (82.5%)	Miami	3 (72)
3 (81.3%)	Florida	1 (21)
4 (78.8%)	Stetson	5 (111)
5 (73.9%)	Florida State	2 (48)
6 (67.6%)	Ave Maria	Tier 2
7 (66.7%)	Nova	Tier 2
8 (59.2%)	Barry	Tier 2
9 (56.8%)	Florida A&M	Tier 2
10 (53.3%)	Florida Coastal	Tier 2
11 (50.8%)	St. Thomas	Tier 2

Miami Herald, Want to Attend Law School in Florida? These Have the Highest Bar Passage Rates:

FIU, the largest public university in the South Florida, led the rankings of Florida’s 11 law schools with a whopping 88.8% passing rate. ... “I’m just so very proud and impressed by our Bar takers,” said FIU law dean Anthony Page. “They have shown an enormous amount of resilience and persistence and legal skill given all of the travails of the last year.” ... This marks the seventh consecutive year that FIU has come out on top in the larger fall administration of the exam. ...

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PAC-12 Law Schools Weekly Zoom Series On Access To Justice

The law schools in the PAC-12 are hosting a free Zoom 10-week lecture series on Tuesdays on Access to Justice (Sept. 21 - Nov. 30 schedule) Jody Armour (USC) kicks off the series today with Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law:

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Five Ways To Make A Real Improvement In Hiring Black Professors

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  5 Ways to Make a Real Improvement in Hiring Black Professors, by J. Luke Wood (Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Diversity, Chief Diversity Officer, and Distinguished Professor of Education, San Diego State):

At San Diego State University, we had 25 tenured and tenure-track Black faculty members in the fall of 2017. This fall, thanks to significant policy and process changes and cross-divisional partnerships, we have 42 — a 68-percent increase in a span of only four years. Since the summer of 2020, we’ve hired nine Black faculty members in academic departments. An additional three hires have faculty status but are in student-affairs offices (such as counseling and campus cultural centers).

In four short years, we have made important and noticeable improvements in the Black community on our campus. These faculty members are introducing new courses, overseeing student-retention and -success programs, and offering our students crucial and much-needed one-on-one connections. Certainly we have more to do, but we’ve laid the foundation to ensure that the number of Black faculty members at the university will continue to rise over time.

How did we do it? Here are some strategies we used and lessons learned along the way.

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Baylor Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof

Baylor Law will be interviewing to fill multiple tenure- track positions to provide coverage in a variety of curricular areas based upon Baylor Law’s curricular needs and applicant’s experience. Possible courses include criminal law (first-year, required Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure), white collar crime, juvenile justice, military justice, real estate finance, debt financing, construction, energy/natural resources, international trade and business transactions, digital/cybersecurity, elder law/special needs, retirement, nonprofit, income taxation, consumer protection, bankruptcy, creditors remedies, negotiable instruments/payment systems, franchising, healthcare, sports law, patent law and litigation, client counseling, municipal government, poverty, family law and family law advocacy and procedure. For more information. please go here.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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Katherine Magbanua's Attorneys Seek To Delay October 4 Dan Markel Murder Trial

Tallahassee Democrat, Judge Will Hear Arguments Over Evidence, COVID Safety in Request to Continue Katherine Magbanua Trial:

A judge is set to weigh requests by Katherine Magabunua’s attorneys to disqualify prosecutors and continue her trial on charges she was involved in coordinating Dan Markel’s murder.

Her attorneys in the past week have leveled accusations prosecutors intentionally provided the jury misleading evidence and left out information that was exculpatory during her first trial in 2019.

They also have concerns about health safety after Magbanua, 36, unbeknownst to her attorneys Christopher DeCoste and Tara Kawass, both cancer survivors, was brought into court late last month with COVID-19.

Magbanua is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder in Markel's July 2014 shooting at his home on Trescott Drive.

The hearing in front of Circuit Judge Robert Wheeler is set for Monday morning in Tallahassee, with a trial in the high-profile case set for Oct. 4.

WCTV, ‘Unconstitutional, Unfair, Unsafe’: Attorneys for Katherine Magbanua Claim She Was COVID Positive Prior to August Court Hearing:

Katherine Magbanua’s attorneys are asking a judge to delay her October trial, saying they have “zero confidence that the court system can ensure safety during the retrial.” ...

The request to delay the trial comes just days after Magbanua’s defense team asked a judge to disqualify the State Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the case. It accuses prosecutors of “intentionally presenting misleading evidence” and “substantial misconduct.”

Magbanua is scheduled to be retried on Oct. 4 after her first trial ended in a hung jury. She’s accused of conspiracy and murder in the 2014 murder of FSU professor Dan Markel. Two other co-defendants — Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera — are already serving time in prison for the crime. ...

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• Why Are Some Law Teachers Called 'Instructor' Rather Than 'Professor'?
• Early Signs Point To Lower July 2021 Bar Exam Pass Rates
• Lederman Launches Season 2 Of Break Into Tax

Sunday:

• The Evangelical Christian Case For COVID-19 Vaccinations
• Why God Created Dogs
• Natt Gantt (Regent) Named Executive Director, Program On Biblical Law And Christian Legal Studies At Harvard Law School
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

The Evangelical Christian Case For COVID-19 Vaccinations

New York Times op-ed:  I’m a Former Pastor, and I Don’t Believe in ‘Religious Exemptions’ to Vaccine Mandates, by Curtis Chang (co-founder, Christians and the Vaccine):

Religious exemptions to employer mandates are a precious right in our democracy. This is why it is especially important not to offer such exemptions to coronavirus vaccine mandates. They make a mockery of Christianity and religious liberty. ...

My plea to my fellow Christians: If you insist on refusing the vaccine, that is your right. But please do not bring God into it. Doing so is the very definition of violating the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” ...

Vaccine hesitancy has never been a core religious belief of evangelical Christians. The vast majority of evangelicals have historically chosen to be immunized against polio, measles, tetanus and other diseases. As a child, I attended evangelical summer camps that required vaccinations, and as an adult, I worked for ministries with similar mandates. Some conservative evangelicals just don’t like the political taste of this particular vaccine on the menu. ...

[R]eligious leaders will need to join with secular institutions in opposing exemptions. Pastors are already being inundated with requests for letters supporting exemptions. As a former pastor of an evangelical church, I know it will be difficult to say “no.” But my colleagues should do the right thing and refuse such requests. Refuse to mislead our secular neighbors. Refuse to abuse our precious religious liberty. Refuse to be complicit in putting our neighbors at risk. ...

The vaccine effort has been plagued by falsehoods of all kinds. The religious exemption from vaccine mandates for Christians is the latest lie. All of us should stand together for the truth.

David French (The French Press), It’s Time to Stop Rationalizing and Enabling Evangelical Vaccine Rejection:

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Why God Created Dogs

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Why God Created Dogs, by Karl Rove:

Just after 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 4, Little Bit Rove, the world’s greatest dog, passed from this life to the next. She apparently had an arrhythmia from birth and despite the best efforts of Dr. Julie Page of Palisade, Colo., and her Valley Emergency Pet Care colleagues in Basalt, Little Bit’s loving heart gave out. She’d have been three in November.

My wife Karen and I had been without a dog since our border collie Nan died in August 2015. On Christmas 2019, Karen decided it was time. Her gift was a promise: I could pick out a dog from a nearby hunting preserve.

When we arrived at Joshua Creek Ranch, the cages on the hunting trucks were filled with a dozen or more dogs that the guides let out so we could see them all in action. From the scrum of animals, a sleek black English cocker spaniel emerged, running straight for us. She jumped on me, her little white tail wagging eagerly, as if to say “Nice to meet you! We’ll have fun today! If the rumors are true you’re looking for a dog, keep me in mind!” The issue was settled. ,,,

She appeared in videos we shared with friends marking holidays or offering invitations to parties and ranch weekends. She even had her portrait painted by a former president, who captured her regal bearing, penetrating eyes and long ears.

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Natt Gantt (Regent) Named Executive Director, Program On Biblical Law And Christian Legal Studies At Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies:

We would like to welcome and introduce you to our new full-time Executive Director for the Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies, Prof. Natt Gantt. Prof. Gantt's duties will also include the role of Lecturer on Law. We are excited for Prof. Gantt to lead our program in this next phase of our development.

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Jason Kilborn, UI-Chicago Law School Settle Controversy Over December 2020 Civ Pro Final Exam Question
2. Amia Srinivasan (Oxford), What’s Wrong With Sex Between Professors And Students?
3. Randall Kennedy (Harvard), Is It Ever OK To Enunciate A Slur In The Classroom?
4. Amna Khalid & Jeffrey Aaron Snyder (Carleton College), The Data Is In: Trigger Warnings Don’t Work
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Admissions Data At 75% Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment
6. U.S. News & World Report, 2022 College Rankings
7. Brian Frye (Kentucky), Letter to the Yale Law Journal Forum
8. Washington University Law School, Russell Osgood Named Interim Dean
9. Philip Wolf (Belcher, Smolen & Van Loo, San Francisco), Manoj Viswanathan: The Professor Who Inspired Me to Love Tax
10. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Retirement Plan Drafting Error Loses Taxpayer $51k Deduction

Why Are Some Law Teachers Called 'Instructor' Rather Than 'Professor'?

ABA Journal, At Some Law Schools, Why Are Those Who Teach Called 'Instructor' Rather Than 'Professor'?:

At Rutgers, everyone who teaches law is called a professor, but that is not true at many other institutions, where faculty who teach topics including legal writing, academic success and clinical work are often given titles including “instructor” or “director.” They are usually paid less than tenure-track professors and sometimes have little if any job security, according to academics interviewed by the ABA Journal.

According to 2019 article by Renee Nicole Allen, Alicia Jackson and DeShun Harris, men traditionally occupying faculty seats at law schools, while women work in skills positions, including libraries, legal writing, clinics, academic success. The article, titled “The ‘Pink Ghetto’ Pipeline: Challenges and Opportunities for Women in Legal Education,” states that women often enter legal education work through nontenured skills-based teaching jobs, which frequently are done on a contract basis and pay poorly, with heavy workloads.

Besides gender disparities, racial disparities exist, too, says says Rachel López, a professor at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University, who also directs its Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic. “In the legal academy, so many who dispel racism and inequality in scholarship for some reason are blind to it at their own institution,” she adds.

López wrote an article, Unentitled: the Power of Designation in the Legal Academy, which is scheduled for publication in the Rutgers University Law Review. Law school titles can cement disparities for people who teach but are not given the professor title, according to the article.

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Early Signs Point To Lower July 2021 Bar Exam Pass Rates

Karen Sloan (Reuters), Ominous Early Signs Emerge For July 2021 Bar Exam Pass Rates:

Data from the July 2021 bar exam is starting to roll in, and test-takers' performance isn't looking great.

The average score on the Multistate Bar Exam, the 200-question multiple-choice portion of the test, fell to 140.4. That's a decrease of 0.7 from July 2019, which is the last time a national cohort of examinees took the same test, the National Conference of Bar Examiners announced Wednesday.

But more alarmingly for test takers and legal educators, pass rates are down year-over-year in all but one of the nine states that have announced results, some by large margins.

NCBE Releases National Means for July MBE, August MPRE:

The national MBE mean scaled score for July 2021 was 140.4, a decrease of 0.7 points compared to the national mean of 141.1 in July 2019, the most recent previous July administration when a full national group was tested. 45,872 examinees from 53 jurisdictions took the MBE in July 2021, a slight increase over the 45,334 examinees from 54 jurisdictions who took the exam in July 2019. ...

Jurisdictions have begun reporting their July 2021 results; bar examination pass rates as reported by jurisdictions are available on the NCBE website. Many jurisdictions are still in the process of grading the written components of the bar exam; once this process is completed, bar exam scores will be calculated and passing decisions reported by those jurisdictions.

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Christians & Lederman Launch Season 2 Of Break Into Tax

Allison Christians (McGill) and Leandra Lederman (Indiana) introduce Season 2 of their YouTube series, Break Into Tax (BiT):

Professors Leandra Lederman & Allison Christians summarize Season 1 & bring Break Into Tax into Season 2! Prof. Lederman will run Season 2, and it will feature some guest co-hosts. Prof. Christians will make some cameo appearances here and there!

Break Into Tax series is intended for anyone learning about tax, anywhere in the world. For more about our backgrounds, see the Season 1 Intro video. 

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal,  At some law schools, why are those who teach called 'instructor' rather than 'professor'?
• Swethaa Ballakrishnen (UC-Irvine) & Carole Silver (Northwestern), A New Minority? International JD Students in US Law Schools
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Admissions Data At 75% Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment
• Alexa Chew (North Carolina) & Rachel Gurvich (North Carolina), Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE’s New Defense Fund Is Here to Save College Faculty Jobs. And We Just Closed Our First Case
• David Frakt (Independent), InfiLaw - The End of An Era (and good riddance)

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Next Week's Virtual Tax Workshops

Monday, September 20: Leslie Book (Villanova; Google Scholar), T. Keith Fogg (Harvard), & Nina Olson (Center for Taxpayer Rights) will present Reducing Administrative Burdens to Protect Taxpayer Rights virtually at Loyola as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please RSVP here. 

Tuesday, September 21: Gabrielle Pepin (Upjohn Institute; Google Scholar) will present How Would a Permanently Refundable Child and Dependent Care Credit Affect Eligibility, Benefits, and Incentives? virtually at Georgetown as part of its Tax Law and Public Finance Workshop. If you would like to attend, please contact Brian Galle. 

Wednesday, September 22: Tessa Davis (South Carolina) will present Tax Narratives: A Critical Tax Perspective on the Biden Tax Plan virtually at Copenhagen as part of its Tax Colloquium Seminars. If you would like to attend, please register here. 

Wednesday, September 22: Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Michael Knoll (Penn) will present Unbundling Undue Burdens virtually at UC-Irvine as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact gradtax@law.uci.edu. 

Thursday, September 23: Francine Lipman (UNLV; Google Scholar) will present Tax Audits, Economics, and Racism virtually at Indiana as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Leandra Lederman. 

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The Data Is In: Trigger Warnings Don’t Work

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  The Data Is In — Trigger Warnings Don’t Work, by Amna Khalid (Carleton College) & Jeffrey Aaron Snyder (Carleton College):

The original proponents of trigger warnings on campus argued that they would empower students suffering from trauma to delve into difficult material. “The point is not to enable — let alone encourage — students to skip readings or our subsequent class discussion,” the philosopher Kate Manne wrote in The New York Times. “It’s about enabling everyone’s rational engagement.”

Now, about a decade after trigger warnings arrived on college campuses, it’s clear that an avoidance rationale is officially competing with the original lean-in logic.

A recent Inside Higher Ed piece by Michael Bugeja, an Iowa State journalism professor, is emblematic of this shift. In light of the tumultuous times (a “mental-health pandemic,” ongoing sexual violence and racism, the anxiety of returning to in-person instruction), Bugeja says that trigger warnings are needed now more than ever. All faculty members should follow his lead, he argues, and include detailed trigger warnings on their syllabi accompanied by the following note: “You don’t have to attend class if the content elicits an uncomfortable emotional response.”

Bugeja’s article prompted us to review the latest research on the efficacy of trigger warnings. We found no evidence that trigger warnings improve students’ mental health. What’s more, we are now convinced that they push students and faculty members alike to turn away from the study of vitally important topics that are seen as too “distressing.” ...

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Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works

Alexa Chew (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Rachel Gurvich (North Carolina), Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud: Teaching Students How Law School Works:

Like the law we teach our students, legal education itself isn’t neutral. It is the product of both structural forces and individual decisions. Hierarchy and structural inequality permeate our society, so of course they permeate the institutions within our society, including law schools. But law schools are not only passive recipients of these permeating atoms of injustice. They have some agency in determining which inequities to nurture (or not) in the learning environment. As it stands, though, the environment that students learn the law in can be an incubator of inequality.

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Take Note: Teaching Law Students To Be Responsible Stewards Of Technology

Kristen E. Murray (Temple; Google Scholar), Take Note: Teaching Law Students to Be Responsible Stewards of Technology, 70 Cath. U. L. Rev. 201 (2021):

The modern lawyer cannot practice without some deployment of technology; practical and ethical obligations have made technological proficiency part of what it means to be practice-ready. These obligations complicate the question of what constitutes best practices in law school. Today’s law schools are filled with students who are digital natives but who do not necessarily leverage technology in maximally efficient ways, and faculty who span multiple generations, with varying amounts of skepticism about modern technology. Students are expected to use technology to read, prepare for class, take notes, and study for and take final exams. Professors might use technology to teach or assess student work, but students are often asked to leave technology out of the classroom because of professor expectations about distraction and notetaking. All of this is happening as we attempt to prepare students to enter a profession that is infused with both technological capabilities and obligations, including the rules of professional conduct. These capabilities and obligations will continue to evolve, grow, and change alongside companion changes in technologies.

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Tax Prof Donald Tobin To Step Down After Seven Years As Maryland Dean

For the second time in a month, a Tax Prof is stepping down after a successful 7-year deanship:

Donald B. Tobin, who has served as dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law since 2014, announced his decision to step down at the end of the 2021-2022 academic year and return to full-time teaching as a member of the Maryland Carey Law faculty.

“Serving as dean of Maryland Carey Law has been the greatest honor of my life,” says Tobin. “I will be forever grateful to this wonderful community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni who entrusted me with leading this fantastic law school over the past seven years.”

Beginning his tenure as dean in the wake of the Great Recession, Tobin is credited with uniting the law school community to achieve a full financial recovery while simultaneously expanding student opportunities and community engagement.

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Frye: Letter To The Yale Law Journal Forum

Brian Frye (Kentucky; Google Scholar), Letter to the Yale Law Journal Forum:

This essay is a legal scholarship in the form of a letter to the Yale Law Journal Forum, reflecting on the nature of the market for legal scholarships. ...

I want to tell you about my scholarship. Every year I write another article about the same thing, just like everyone else. It’s a drag, but the summer bonus makes it worth the effort, and at this point, the articles almost write themselves. Recycling the literature review sure helps!

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A New Minority? International J.D. Students In U.S. Law Schools

Swethaa Ballakrishnen (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Carole Silver (Northwestern; Google Scholar), A New Minority? International JD Students in US Law Schools, 44 Law & Soc.  Inquiry 647 (2019):

This Article reveals the significance of a new and growing minority group within US law schools - international students in the Juris Doctor (JD) program. While international students have received some attention in legal education scholarship, it mostly has been focused on their participation in the context of programs specially designed for this demographic (e.g. post-graduate programs like the LLM and SJD). Drawing from interview data with fifty-eight international JD students across seventeen graduating US law schools, our research reveals the rising importance of international students as actors within a more mainstream institutional context. Particularly, in examining the ways these students navigate their law school environments, we find that although international status often impacts identity and participation, not all students encounter its impact similarly. While some students use the identity to their advantage, others cannot escape negative implications, even with effort. This is consistent with other scholarship on minority students, and adds to a growing literature that uses their socialization experiences to better understand professional stratification.

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Submission Of Law Student Articles For Publication

Nancy Levit (Google Scholar), Lawrence MacLachlan, Allen Rostron, Drew Greaves & Staci Pratt (UMKC), Submission of Law Student Articles for Publication:

Each year law students collectively write a large number of papers that could become law review articles but that are never published. Most law schools require students at some point during their time in law school to research and write an academic paper of publishable quality or seminar paper. Some of these are law review notes and comments that are not selected for publication. Others of these are papers written for specific substantive classes or to fulfill research and writing requirements.

Most of these student papers — even very worthy ones — will never be published or posted online. The publishing route for law students who want to publish in a venue other than their home law journal is not clearly marked. And many law reviews simply will not accept submissions from students outside their own school. Often, the publishing opportunities for non-law review members in their home school’s law review are also not well known.

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Will Law Schools Follow Amazon And Use Tech To Measure Faculty Work Rate?

Wall Street Journal, The Way Amazon Uses Tech to Squeeze Performance Out of Workers Deserves Its Own Name: Bezosism:

More than a century ago, Frederick Winslow Taylor and Henry Ford pioneered systems for speeding up work that we take for granted today. ... Amazon’s 21st-century, algorithm-driven successor to Taylorism and Fordism ... [is] a mix of surveillance, measurement, psychological tricks, targets, incentives, sloganeering, Jeff Bezos ’ trademark hard-charging attitude toward work, and an ever-growing array of clever and often proprietary technologies. Taken as a whole, this system is novel enough in the history of work that it deserves its own name: Bezosism.

At this very moment, Bezosism is diffusing through the world of work, rewriting the source code of the global industrial machine. If it proves as popular and durable as the systems of organization on which it builds—from Fordism to the Toyota Production System—it could be, along with the e-commerce and space companies he built, Mr. Bezos’ most important legacy.

Depending on how the company practicing Bezosism wields its power, this system of technologically supercharged management can be benevolent, or sinister, or both.

Take, for example, Amazon’s well-known metric for evaluating worker performance. ... In Amazon’s fulfillment centers, human productivity is measured by an overall pick or stow rate calculated for each worker at a robot-fed pick-and-stow station.

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Admissions Data At 75% Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  with Spivey Consulting reporting the admissions statistics for 75% of the U.S. News Top 50 law schools, LSAT (+1.4) and UGPA (+0.4) medians are up, as well as enrollment (+29.0). (Yellow shading indicates law schools added since my August 30 post): 

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Manoj Viswanathan: The Professor Who Inspired Me To Love Tax

Philip Wolf (J.D. 2019, UC-Hastings; Tax Associate, Belcher, Smolen & Van Loo, San Francisco), Manoj Viswanathan: The Professor Who Inspired Me to Love Tax, 172 Tax Notes Fed. 1615 (Sept. 6, 2021):

Out of the thousands of different professions, how does one end up choosing tax? I can tell you exactly how it happened with me. During my second semester of law school, I was permitted to take one elective class. I selected basic income taxation. Although I knew nothing about the subject, I sensed it might somehow be helpful to my goal of starting a business one day. Little could I have imagined where the class would lead me!

In our first session, in walked the ebullient yet sincere professor, Manoj Viswanathan, or as he asked us students to call him, “Professor V.” Every lecture, Professor V. emphasized how everything we’d learn in his class would be practical and relevant in the real world. Time seemed to melt away in each Tuesday and Friday lecture, and I caught myself pondering what he’d said many hours after each class. It was Professor V.’s introductory tax class that would make me decide to change my career plans and become a tax lawyer.

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St. Mary's To Launch Nation's First Fully Online ABA-Accredited JD Degree In Fall 2022 With 25 Students

Following up on my previous post:  St. Mary’s Law Launches the Nation’s First Fully Online J.D. Program Approved by the ABA:

The online J.D. program will begin recruiting for Fall 2022 with accreditation by the American Bar Association.

St. Mary’s University and its School of Law today announced that it is the first law school in the nation to approve offering a fully online J.D. program that is accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA).

Following the ABA’s approval of the School of Law’s online program request in May, St. Mary’s University leaders this week announced their intention to move ahead with the innovative program and recruit a cohort of students who will begin their studies online in Fall 2022.

“As the only law school serving San Antonio and the southernmost school serving South Texas, St. Mary’s Law has a tradition of excellence in legal education stretching back to its founding in 1927,” said Patricia Roberts, J.D., St. Mary’s Law Dean and Charles E. Cantú Distinguished Professor of Law. “This new fully online J.D. program — the one and only of its kind — exemplifies how St. Mary’s Law continues to lead with tradition and innovation.”

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What’s Wrong With Sex Between Professors And Students?

New York Times op-ed:  What’s Wrong With Sex Between Professors and Students? It’s Not What You Think., by Amia Srinivasan (Oxford; Author, The Right To Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century (2021)):

Netflix’s new hit comedy “The Chair” revels in certain clichés of university life — mock-Gothic buildings, wood paneling, crusty old-timers who don’t know how to use a photocopier, and, of course, an ambiguous relationship between a professor and a student: Bill is a charismatic English professor who is in a tailspin after the death of his wife, and Dafna is a literature-loving undergrad who is desperate to get into Bill’s class. She gives him a ride; they quote T.S. Eliot to each other; he signs a copy of his book for her; she makes him a pie. We think we know where this is going, because we’ve seen it so many times before: in “Election” (1999), “The Squid and the Whale” (2005) and “Elegy” (2008), based on Philip Roth’s novel “The Dying Animal” — to take just a few recent examples. “The Chair” ultimately upends our expectations in a way that is both comic and poignant. Don’t have sex with me, Dafna in effect says to Bill: Teach me.

The cultural fascination with professor-student affairs seems to have grown in step with policies restricting them. (“Be careful,” the dean warns Bill in “The Chair.” “This department is hanging on by a thread.”) Policies prohibiting professor-student sex — “consensual relationship policies” as they are usually known — are now common in the United States. A 2014 study found that 84 percent of the American universities surveyed had some prohibitions on professor-student relationships. ...

Despite the bans’ origins in feminist activism, some feminists at the time denounced these prohibitions as a betrayal of their principles. To deny that women students could consent to sex with their professors, they argued, was infantilizing and moralizing. Were women university students not adults? Were they not entitled to have sex with whom they pleased? Did such policies not play into the hands of the religious right, which was all too keen to control women’s sex lives? ...

In many ways, the contemporary focus on consent is a victory. Historically, sexual assault was defined not by the absence of consent but by the presence of force, which meant that the countless women who froze with fear or chose to submit rather than face the alternative were not, legally speaking, raped. But in recent years our interest in consent has become single-minded. The habit of viewing all kinds of exploitative, creepy or troubling sex solely through the lens of consent has left us unable to speak, in many situations, about what is really going wrong.

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Scores Suggest Longer LSAT Was No Problem For August Test Takers

Reuters, Scores Suggest Longer LSAT Was No Problem for August Test Takers:

The Law School Admission Test just got longer, but aspiring attorneys still managed to do pretty well.

The average score earned by the 24,907 people who took the LSAT this August was 154.19, just 1.4 points lower than the 155.6 average score among August 2020 LSAT takers. Both exams used an at-home, online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the most recent test was four sections long—one section longer than the August 2020 iteration.

Officials with the Law School Admission Council, which designs and administers the LSAT, say the score difference between the latest tests is negligible and the data throws cold water on the theory that LSAT scores have soared over the past year because a shorter exam is inherently easier. (The number of people who applied to law school with LSAT scores of 160 and above last admissions cycle was up 25% or more in each five-point score band, and the number of applicants with the highest scores of 175-180 more than doubled.)

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Kennedy: Is It Ever OK To Enunciate A Slur In The Classroom?

Following up on my previous post:  Randall Kennedy (Harvard) & Eugene Volokh (UCLA), The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond, 49 Cap. U. L. Rev. 1 (2021):  Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Is It Ever OK to Enunciate a Slur in the Classroom?, by Randall Kennedy (Harvard; Author, Say It Loud: On Race, Law, History, and Culture (2021)):

Is it acceptable for pedagogical purposes to enunciate the epithet “[N-word]”?

The question is topical because of a string of incidents in which professors have been condemned, disciplined, even fired for enunciating in full the notorious N-word. Controversies have stemmed from a professor airing the word while discussing language from which courts have withdrawn the protection that the First Amendment typically accords to speech; a teacher mentioning the word while discussing a hate-speech prosecution; a teacher quoting a passage in which the term appears in a Supreme Court opinion; a professor quoting a statement attributed to a founding father who reportedly referred to Blacks as “[N-word]” during debate over the ratification of the Constitution; a teacher reading aloud from James Baldwin.

In my teaching I have done on many occasions the thing that has brought trouble to those and other fellow educators. I do not “use” “[N-word]” in the sense in which “use” is rightly condemned. I do not bandy it about gratuitously, much less to taunt, threaten, demean, or insult anyone. I enunciate “[N-word]” in full, out loud with some purpose in mind. Usually the aim is to drive home to audiences the pervasiveness of anti-Black prejudice and, more specifically, the way in which this troublesome word has been an integral part of the soundtrack of American racism.

Some thoughtful teachers determinedly avoid vocalizing “[N-word].” I think here of the distinguished University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone, an eminent scholar of constitutional law and a stalwart champion of academic freedom. ... Stone’s new stance deferred to the proposition that, in these circumstances, a feeling of hurt upon hearing “[N-word]” is a reaction warranting accommodation. I disagree. I am skeptical of some of the claims of hurt. I suspect that some of them are the product of learned strategic ripostes. It is now well known that in certain settings, particularly those that strive to be socially enlightened (like colleges and universities), you can effectively challenge speech to which you object by claiming not only that it is socially abhorrent (racist, sexist, transphobic, etc., etc., etc.) but that it makes you feel insulted, offended, or endangered. ...

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Vanderbilt Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof

Vanderbilt University: Law School — Assistant/Associate/Professor of Law:

Vanderbilt University Law School seeks applicants for up to three faculty positions. The Law School seeks a full-time tenured or tenure- track faculty member, at the entry or lateral level, in any field of study whose scholarship focuses on issues of race and the law. The Law School also invites applicants in any area of law, and especially with scholarship or teaching in torts, constitutional law (rights), civil rights, civil litigation, IP/patent, commercial law, and taxation.

Applicants should possess strong academic and professional qualifications. Lateral applicants must have a substantial record of legal scholarship and effective teaching skills. Please submit a cover letter, resume, research agenda, and references to http://apply.interfolio. com/91289. For questions only, please email lawfaculty.appts@vanderbilt.edu.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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Brian Leiter v. Richard Painter

Brian Leiter (Chicago), Richard Painter (Minnesota) Is An Astonishingly Dishonest Person:

Some readers will recall some posts from July about Twitter's most unhinged law professor. Remarkably, he continues to lie about me almost two months later, I guess because he's not used to getting any pushback on his unethical behavior. ...

Richard even tried to smear other law professors (including two of my colleagues) as racists; commenting on this paper about lax tenure standards in law schools by three younger scholars (one of whom, contrary to Richard, is untenured) [Adam Chilton (Chicago), Jonathan Masur (Chicago) & Kyle Rozema (Washington U.), Rethinking Law School Tenure Standards, 50 J. Legal Stud. 1 (2021)], he tweeted:

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Katherine Magbanua's Attorneys Seek To Disqualify Prosecutor In Dan Markel Murder Trial

Tallahassee Democrat, Dan Markel Murder: Magbanua Attorneys Look to Disqualify Prosecutors Over Evidence Exhibits:

Attorneys for Katherine Magbanua are seeking to disqualify prosecutors, who allege she was involved in the plot to kill Dan Markel, saying they intentionally provided the jury misleading evidence and left out information that was exculpatory during her first trial.

Less than a month before Magabnua goes back on trial for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder, her Miami attorneys are asking a judge to oust the State Attorney’s Office from her prosecution.

Their claims, filed in Leon County Circuit Court Friday afternoon, lie in exhibits presented at Magbanua’s first trial in 2019. A hung jury was unable to decide her fate and a mistrial was declared. She will again face a jury October 4.

The exhibits include phone and bank records for Magbanua that they say not only were inaccurate but contained information kept from the jury that may have provided evidence in her favor.

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2022 U.S. News College Rankings

U.S. News & World Report has released its 2022 College Rankings. Here are the Top 25 National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges:

Rank	National Universities
1	Princeton
2	Columbia
2	Harvard
2	MIT
5	Yale
6	Stanford
6	Chicago
8	Penn
9	Cal-Tech
9	Duke
9	Johns Hopkins
9	Northwestern
13	Dartmouth
14	Brown
14	Vanderbilt
14	Washington (St. Louis)
17	Cornell
17	Rice
19	Notre Dame
20	UCLA
21	Emory
22	UC-Berkeley
23	Georgetown
23	Michigan
25	Carnegie Mellon
25	Virginia

Pepperdine is ranked #49.

• Chronicle of Higher Education, Colleges Still Obsess Over National Rankings. For Proof, Look at Their Strategic Plans.
• Chronicle of Higher Education, ‘U.S. News’ Keeps ACT and SAT Scores in the Mix —For Now
• Inside Higher Ed, 'U.S. News' Makes Modest Tweak in Methodology

Prior Years' U.S. News National University Rankings:

• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2009

2022 U.S. News Liberal Arts College Rankings:

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Jason Kilborn, UI-Chicago Law School Settle Controversy Over December 2020 Civ Pro Final Exam Question

Following up on my previous posts:

• Controversy At UIC Law School Over Use Of 'N And B (Profane Expressions For African Americans And Women)' On Fall Civ Pro Exam (Jan. 16, 2021)
• Is This Law Professor Really A Homicidal Threat? (Jan. 20, 2021)

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE’s New Defense Fund Is Here to Save College Faculty Jobs. And We Just Closed Our First Case.:

When the University of Illinois Chicago suspended and launched an investigation into law professor Jason Kilborn, he initially didn’t know where to turn.

He had posed a long-used hypothetical question in a December 2020 law school exam using redacted references to two slurs. The question about employment discrimination included a plaintiff being called “a ‘n____’ and ‘b____’ (profane expressions for African Americans and women)” as explosive evidence of the discrimination. But even redacting the terms didn’t save him from criticism — or eventually being targeted by his school. ...

In January, just before the first class on the first day of spring semester, UIC’s administration abruptly suspended him. He said they refused to explain the basis for the indefinite suspension, despite being asked. ...

On Jan. 19, FIRE called on UIC Chancellor Michael D. Amiridis to reject “any intent to punish Kilborn over his protected expression.” FIRE gave UIC a good-faith opportunity to back off Kilborn and to reaffirm his academic freedom rights.

UIC responded to confirm that it was, in fact, conducting an investigation into Kilborn’s exam and rejecting our concerns about his academic freedom rights. The move earned UIC a spot on FIRE’s annual list of the 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech, as well as pointed criticism from outlets and commentators across the country.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Northwestern University law professor Andrew Koppelman billed the situation as “punitive overreactions of university administrators grow[ing] ever more demented.” ...

Through the fund, FIRE connected Kilborn with a local attorney, Wayne Giampietro. With help from the FLDF team at FIRE, the pair reached a resolution with UIC. Kilborn agreed to alert the dean before responding to student complaints about racial issues, and the audio of his classes would be recorded — both stipulations Kilborn welcomed in order to protect himself against spurious complaints, and one he’d already decided to take independently. 

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Russell Osgood Named Interim Dean At Washington University

Following up on my previous post, Dean (And Tax Prof) Nancy Staudt To Leave Washington University On Oct. 1 To Be Dean Of RAND Graduate School:  Russell K. Osgood has been named Interim Dean (more here).

After earning his B.A. and J.D. at Yale, Russell was a tax associate at Hill & Barlow in Boston (1974-1978). He then was a Tax Prof at Boston University (1978-1980) and Cornell (1980-1988) before becoming Dean at Cornell (1988-1998) and President of Grinnell College (1998-2010). Since 2010, Russell has been a Visiting Professor at Washington University.

Russell has had an enormous influence on two generations of Caron men. I had absolutely no interest in tax as a Cornell law student before taking Russell's federal income tax class. I took other courses from him, served as his teaching assistant and research assistant, and helped shepherd his tax article to publication as a law review editor (Ages and Themes of Income Taxation: Savings and Investment, 68 Cornell L. Rev. 521 (1983)). Like Russell, I became a tax lawyer in Boston, tax professor, and dean. At every step along the way, Russell provided invaluable guidance and helped convince various hiring committees to take a chance on me. As if that wasn't enough, my son Reed attended Grinnell College while Russell was President and gave me the opportunity to re-connect with him and thank him for all he had done for both my son and me.

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Iowa Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof

Faculty Jobs@UIowa:

The University of Iowa College of Law anticipates hiring multiple entry-level or lateral faculty members in areas including tax, constitutional law, and a variety of other specialties. ...

Candidates should apply either through the AALS Faculty Recruitment Services or by submitting a letter of interest, CV, a list of three references, and a law school transcript through Jobs@UIOWA. ...

For questions, please contact Faculty Appointments Committee.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• September 11th At Pepperdine
• 9/11 Near Miss Still Haunts Law School Admissions Community
• Arkansas-Little Rock Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof (Eligible For Distinguished Professorship)

Sunday:

• Season 2 Of Ted Lasso Challenges Viewers To Seek True Joy Over Shallow Happiness
• Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, And The Path To American Unity
• Remember Todd Beamer Of United 93
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Season 2 Of Ted Lasso Challenges Viewers To Seek True Joy Over Shallow Happiness

Following up on my previous posts:

• Ted Lasso, Law School Deaning, And The Power Of Forgiveness (Jan. 24, 2021)
• Why Real Coaches (And Deans) Want To Be Ted Lasso (July 19, 2021)

Christianity Today, ‘Ted Lasso’ Won’t Settle for Shallow Optimism:

The show’s second season challenges viewers to consider true joy over hyper-positivity. ...

Released in 2020, Ted Lasso centers an out-of-his-depth American football coach who takes a job with an English soccer team. ... Ted’s vulnerable moments—a divorce, a disdainful team captain, and a boss who’s set him up for failure—have balanced his seemingly unflappable optimism, preventing him from being reduced to a symbol and revealing him as a human who, like us, is sometimes neglected, anxious, and in need of love. Even in the first season, writers attempted to make Ted more than a mustachioed Pollyanna by showing his panic attack at a karaoke bar and his procrastination in signing his divorce papers.

After a dark year that made many of us face our greatest anxieties and our mortality, watching Ted build an unlikely community felt satisfying. “Being nice, in ‘Ted Lasso,’ is not a naïve denial of the darkness of life. It’s a cleareyed adaptation to it,” wrote James Poniewozik at The New York Times. “The series recognizes that nice guys do sometimes finish last. It just argues that other things are more important than finishing first.”

And yet, what has haunted Ted Lasso’s second season is the chance that a good show centered on positivity, kindness, and joy might turn maudlin and trite. It offers us a glimpse of integrity without consequences and mirth without stakes. ...

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Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, And The Path To American Unity

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Jewish Tradition and National Unity: The High Holidays Offer Lessons That Can Be Helpful to All Americans, by Joe Lieberman (former U.S. Senator and author, The Centrist Solution: How We Made Government Work and Can Make It Work Again (2021)):

The ram’s horn, or shofar, is sounded throughout the Jewish high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as a call for Jews to reflect, reform and repent. Many of us are doing exactly that this month. The lessons associated with these holidays, which both happen in September this year, are more relevant than ever to all Americans.

The U.S. today is less unified and secure, less law-abiding, less respectful of government, and less confident in the future than at any point in my life. It needs to be jolted from its current course by the sound of the ram’s horn to find a better way forward.

The path Jewish tradition offers is through repentance, but not only in the way it is commonly understood. As Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks taught, the root of the Hebrew word for repentance, teshuvah, means to return. For a nation, he explained, it means to return “to our roots, our faith, our history.” This is the best first step the American people can take to overcome division, because it will show how far we have strayed from the source of our national values, unity and purpose.

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Remember Todd Beamer Of United 93

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Remember Todd Beamer of United 93, by Mene Ukueberuwa:

His heroism on 9/11 drew from a lifetime of faith and character. ...

My region, the state of New Jersey, and the country as a whole ought to know more about Todd Beamer.

A 32-year-old software salesman for Oracle, Beamer was among the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 who attacked the hijackers and prevented them from crashing the Boeing 757 into the U.S. Capitol. His rallying cry, “Let’s roll,” rests in America’s memory. It is exalting to think of what he and his fellow passengers did on that short flight, and the people they saved on the ground.

Beamer remained poised under extreme pressure. Many passengers made phone calls during the flight, but Beamer’s call with Airfone operator Lisa Jefferson became the fullest account of what took place in the air that day. He remained on the line for 14 minutes, describing the direction of the plane, the hijackers’ behavior and, eventually, the passengers’ decision to revolt.

“His voice was devoid of any stress,” Ms. Jefferson later said. “In fact, he sounded so tranquil it made me begin to doubt the authenticity and urgency of his call.” ...

A strong Christian faith also carried Beamer toward his fate. Lisa recounts that their life together was founded on faith—at Wheaton, while rearing children, and teaching Sunday school at Princeton Alliance Church.

Before ending his call with Ms. Jefferson, Beamer asked, “Would you do one last thing for me?”

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This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Season Was One For The Ages: Applicants Were Up 12.6%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band
2. Reuters, California Bar to Attorneys: Disable Alexa When Working From Home
3. U.S. News, Law School Rankings: Bar Exam Performance
4. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, University Of Arkansas Chancellor Removes President Clinton’s Name From Endowed Professorship At Law School
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: IRS Can Issue Multiple 'Final' Spousal Relief Determinations
6. Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2020 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
7. ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Council Finds Cleveland-Marshall Law School Out Of Compliance With Financial Resources Accreditation Standard
8. New York Times, Why A Duke Professor With Stage IV Colon Cancer Will Not Make A Bucket List Before She Dies
9. Wall Street Journal, Can Congress Tax Wealth By ‘Deeming’ It Income?
10. AALS, New Deans Starting in the 2021-22 Academic Year

September 11th At Pepperdine

Today is a very special day at Pepperdine. For the 14th consecutive year, we displayed 2,887 American flags for each American life lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and 90 international flags representing the home countries of those from abroad who also were killed.

Pepperdine University to Commemorate 20th Anniversary of 9/11 with Annual Waves of Flags Display and Remembrance Events:

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9/11 Near Miss Still Haunts Law School Admissions Community

Reuters, Two Decades On, 9/11 Near Miss Still Haunts Law School Admissions Community:

Michael Goodnight was halfway into his flight from Fort Lauderdale to New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, when the pilot told passengers that air traffic to their destination was halted because a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Soon the pilot said a second plane had hit the other tower and that they would turn back.

“Everybody was scared,” said Goodnight, who was then dean of admissions at the University of Miami School of Law. “We knew something bad was happening.”

Goodnight was among more than 300 admissions officers and thousands of aspiring students preparing to attend the Law School Admission Council’s New York City Law School Forum – the year's largest law school recruiting event. The forum was planned for Sept. 14 and 15 at the Marriott World Trade Center, a 22-story hotel that straddled the iconic twin towers' base before its destruction in the nation’s worst-ever terrorist attack.

Goodnight and about 10 other forum participants were scheduled to check into the Marriott on Sept. 11. None made it on site before the attacks that morning, saving them from the experience of thousands of direct 9/11 victims and survivors. But the near miss left current and former law school admissions officers contemplating what might have happened had the forum been just a few days earlier, or the attacks a few days later. ...

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Arkansas-Little Rock Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof (Eligible For Distinguished Professorship)

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law, anticipates hiring a lateral or entry-level tax scholar. The successful candidate will be eligible to apply for the law school’s Bryon M. Eiseman Distinguished Professor of Tax Law.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Council Decision, Notice of Finding of Significant Noncompliance With Standards 202(a), (c), and (d) Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Aug. 31, 2021)
• AALS, New Deans Starting in the 2021-22 Academic Year
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Beat Goes On
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Season Was One For The Ages: Applicants Were Up 12.6%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism: A Short Critique
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog),  Synthesizing Rules

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Next Week's Virtual Tax Workshops

Monday, September 13: Guido Alfani (Bocconi; Google Scholar) will present Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Times: Europe and Beyond virtually at Loyola as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please RSVP here. 

Tuesday, September 14: John Brooks (Georgetown; Google Scholar) & David Gamage (Indiana; Google Scholar) will present The Indirect Tax Canon, Apportionment, and Drafting a Constitutional Wealth Tax virtually at NYU as part of its Tax Policy and Public Finance Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Daniel Shaviro. 

Wednesday, September 15: Allison Christians (McGill; Google Scholar) will present Tax Cooperation in an Unjust World virtually at UCI as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact taxpolicy@law.uci.edu. 

Friday, September 17: Christine Kim (Utah; Google Scholar) will present A New Framework for Digital Taxation (with Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & Karen Sam) virtually at Boston College as part of its Tax Policy Collaborative. If you would like to attend, please contact lawevent@bc.edu. 

Friday, September 17: Ruth Mason (Virginia; Google Scholar) & Michael Knoll (Penn) will present Unbundling Undue Burdens virtually at Florida as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Ruth McIlhenny. 

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Podcast: The History Of Female Law Professors With Patricia Cain

I previously blogged the release of the new book, Herma Hill Kay, Paving the Way: The First American Women Law Professors (Patricia A. Cain (Santa Clara), ed. University of California Press 2021). 

Check out the podcast, The History Of Female Law Professors With Patricia Cain (27 minutes)

Kathryn interviews Patricia Cain, one of the authors of Paving the Way, about the twists and turns of her life and career: from going to law school, being part of a circus troupe to starting a career in the legal academia. Patricia highlights her experiences not only as a teacher but also her experiences in law school. She also shared the best lessons she learned, especially for those who want to start a life in legal academia.

Episode Highlights

• Introducing the guest: Patricia Cain. - 0:38
• The reasons why Patricia decided to go to law school. - 1:24
• The twists and turns: How she went from law school, a theater member, to being a teacher. - 4:20
• Patricia’s involvement in the Paving the Way book project. - 9:14
• A shift from being introduced to Herma Hill Kay to continue writing the book. - 12:08
• Linking histories: Knowing the difference of the process back in the ’70s to her experience. - 17:16
• It wasn’t until other women joined the faculty that Ellen Peter’s voice could be heard during faculty meetings. When you’re the one woman in the room, you say something and nobody says anything back then 5 minutes later a man says the same thing and everybody thinks it’s brilliant. I experience that every time. - 18:57
• The adoption process. - 21:17
• The best lessons that people who want to start a life in academia can take away. - 23:46

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