From the Arkansas Advocate:
The abrupt revocation of a job offer to the University of Arkansas’ incoming law school dean prompted a student-led protest on the Fayetteville campus Tuesday and calls for the school to adopt a policy to prevent undue influence on personnel decisions.
Approximately 100 demonstrators, mostly students, shouted chants like “keep the Capitol out of the classroom” and “our school won’t be sold” as they marched past popular campus landmarks like Old Main Lawn and the Greek Theatre in support of Emily Suski.
The university received national attention last week when officials withdrew an offer to Suski following complaints from key Arkansas Republicans about her background and legal positions on transgender athletes. Suski is a University of South Carolina law professor and Title IX expert.
The decision to rescind the offer less than a week after announcing Suski’s selection sparked concerns about violating academic freedom and chilling faculty speech, complaints echoed during Tuesday’s student-led protest.
During the dean search, third-year law student Addison Brooks said students and faculty met with candidates and provided feedback.
The “overwhelming attitude” of faculty and staff was that Suski was “the best fit.” However, the decision to rescind her offer shows their opinions didn’t matter, Brooks said.
“There were people whose voices were more important to them than ours, and that’s really upsetting, and I think that that should upset anyone in the state who values public discourse, a strong education system and an unafraid legal profession,” she said. “If they can do it to us, they can do it to anyone.”
There were 376 students enrolled in the law school as of the fall semester. A university official did not immediately return a request for comment on the protest.
The Arkansas Student Bar Association expressed concerns about the message the decision sends to students in a statement issued Tuesday.
“To suggest that a prospective dean’s prior legal positions would ‘indoctrinate’ students is to both fundamentally misunderstand legal education and insult the intellectual capacity of the student body,” the statement reads.
Brooks and her classmates, collectively known as Arkansas Law Students for Academic Freedom, organized Tuesday’s event, which included a roughly one-mile march around the campus.
At the end of the march, protestors gathered outside the student union where demonstrators said they’ve felt sad, angry, fearful and overwhelmed over the situation.
Participants argued it doesn’t matter whether people agreed with Suski’s legal opinion. The issue is protecting free speech, which they said is being eroded if lawyers have to be concerned about retaliation for expressing a legal opinion or defending a client with viewpoints that lawmakers disagree with.
People are afraid to discuss the job revocation itself, according to third-year law student Steven Jacobs, who said the university’s decision devalues their law degrees and undermines the integrity of the legal profession in Arkansas.
“This is an assault on academic independence from an increasingly paternalist government, and it’s an insult to our school, our profession and us as students for the state to say that it knows what’s best for us,” Jacobs said.
Arkansas Law Students for Academic Freedom called for an independent review of the hiring process and the adoption of a policy protecting university personnel decisions from “undisclosed government pressure.”
The law students’ demands have been written in a formal letter that will be delivered to the university’s administration, Brooks said.
The concern reverberates beyond the law school. Ted Swedenburg, a professor emeritus in anthropology and Middle East Studies, said he was “gobsmacked” to learn about the university’s decision, which “potentially destroys the integrity and independence of the university,” and instills fear.
Freedom of speech increasingly has been challenged at higher education institutions across the country, Swedenburg said, including at the University of Arkansas, which removed its Middle East center director in December following statements about Israel. Her attorney raised concerns about political pressure after state senators issued a statement about her discipline, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
“When I come back and talk to my faculty friends, they’re demoralized by all these things,” Swedenburg said.
The decision to withdraw Suski’s offer will severely hinder the university’s ability to recruit students, faculty and administrators, Brooks said.
“What dean wants to come here now?” she said. “If professors around the nation see what our legislature is capable of when they don’t get their way, who wants to come here and be in charge of the next generation of attorneys?”
