Law Professors Upset Over Proposed ABA Shift on Tenure

Should the American Bar Association require law schools to maintain a tenure system?

The committee reviewing the ABA's accreditation standards doesn't think so. It has floated a proposal that would eliminate the term "tenure" from the ABA standards covering job security and academic freedom. The committee also wants to kill a requirement that law schools provide clinical faculty members with job protections similar to those enjoyed by full-time professors.

Organizations that represent law professors and clinical faculty have lined up in opposition to the changes. They argue that tenure is key to protecting academic freedom and maintaining high quality legal education.

"The security that comes with tenure is the only way to ensure that faculty will remain free to teach, research, participate in governance decisions, and speak on matters of public concern without fear of reprisal," reads a letter that the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) has submitted to the Standards Review Committee. "Changing the accreditation standards to weaken the requirements regarding tenure would have enormous and unfortunate implications for the quality of legal education."

The ABA subcommittee examining job security and academic freedom has concluded that the existing standards don't require law schools to maintain a tenure system in the first place, despite interpretations to the contrary. The standards say that "a law school shall have a comprehensive system for evaluating candidates for promotion and tenure or other forms of security of position…."

The proposed standards would clarify that law schools are not obligated to offer tenure but make clear that schools must protect academic freedom, according to a note from the subcommittee that drafted the new rules.

Standards Review Committee Donald Polden, dean of Santa Clara University School of Law, said that critics have rushed to judg ...