Law School Roundup

During the 2011 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in San Francisco last week, Dean Donald Polden of the Santa Clara University School of Law addressed a capacity crowd during a panel discussion entitled, “Can There Be Full Academic Freedom Without Tenure?” A spirited debate ensued among panelists and attendees about the role tenure plays in academic freedom and whether it should be required at U.S. law schools. “This is a topic of major importance and a topic that’s up in the air right now,” said Yale Law School Dean Robert Post, who moderated.

The ABA’s law school accreditation committee, which started its work in 2008, has circulated a proposed draft of new accreditation standards that removes the word “tenure” from the text. It has interpreted the existing standard to mean that tenure never was a requirement for accreditation, as many legal academics believed. Rather, the committee has interpreted the standards to mean that accredited schools must have a stated policy regarding tenure or similar security of position.