Masking Humility As Capitulation

I’ve been attending a wonderful conference of Clinical Law Professors this week and have learned so much about administration and considerations that Deans must make.

While I am not a Dean and never really knew what being a Dean was all about, it has been fascinating to hear such interesting perspectives, particularly regarding law school responses to Trump’s Executive Orders on DEI.

the first thing I’ve learned is that a Dean’s viewpoint is 360 degrees. While my focus is training the next generation of future attorneys to understand the issues and participate in effectuating the societal changes they would like to see materialize, a Dean’s job is more robust. Deans not only deal with internal management of students, budgets, internal governing processes, and faculty management, but they also deal with external pressures that challenge the institution itself… donors and alumni, prospective students, community stakeholders, and yes… governmental regulations.

When Trump was seemingly dropping Executive Orders as often as No Limit Records was dropping albums in the 1990s, Deans were charged with making the best decisions they could to balance their juggle interests and keep the institution operational. For some, the best option was to agree with the President, at least facially, assuming the change demanded did not impact the substance of the work.

What does that mean to a layperson?

Welp…

Let’s say I have a program that provides a crucially needed resource to a vastly underrepresented demographic in my institution’s respective community. And let’s say the person directing that program has a title “Clinical Professor of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”…. If the presidential executive order is saying to get rid of DEI, is the target of the Presidential Administration to dismantle the program itself, or is it acceptable to merely get rid of the label but continue business as usual?

For some institutions that heavily rely on federal funds to operate, the decision was clear. Scrap the name/title, but keep doing the work. For other institutions with way more private revenue, a bigger fight can be had to dig its heels in and not budge. But that bring into account other issues:

Larger society outside of the academic institution assumes that the schools we support as bastions of progress receive sufficient funding to make independent decisions that uphold that status. But allow me to pop that bubble right now. Schools… ESPECIALLY LAW SCHOOLS… run off of private (and most often corporate) donors. And those donors have political beliefs as well. And as you might imagine, those donors don’t always have interests that align with the values of the institution. Much like everything else in America, the people who generate enough revenue to make massive pledged financial support are not the folks that DEI programs were designed to advocate for in rectifying inequality. Nope… those are largely white folks, and most often CONSERVATIVE white folks. Meaning that even for a rich private educational institution, it is beholden to the concerns of its alum and donors. Because if the federal funding is cut AND the donations get cut, you have to contemplate downsizing or outright closure assuming there are no other funding sources.

It appears to me that mean Deans believe that the current Presidential Administration is all about public relations and “the easy win.” If he can roll back the labeling of something called DEI, he won’t press further to disrupt the actual work being performed. This is a VERY calculated risk. And while I don’t have a school to run nor am I a Dean of anything, I have also expressed my concern for taking such a calculated measure.

I don’t know institutional administration, but I know bullying very well. In my experience, rarely does a bully stop when they win the public battle. If they can convince you to change your name, they can also convince you to stop providing the services you provide. What we are seeing now is the main reason that low income parents do their best to warn their children about debt. When you live above your means on someone else’s funding, they have the power to dictate your life. And working in the Housing Law space, I’ve seen the worst examples of that… poor single moms at risk of eviction by sleazy landlords who find “other unique ways” to get something of value in exchange for missing an additional month of rent…

I also am a huge believer in posterity. In ten years when this nightmare is over, someone is going to look back and ask what did we, as a LAW SCHOOL COMMUNITY training FUTURE LAWYERS, do to combat what will obviously be labeled “fascism” and “violation of the first amendment and the philosophy of American academic freedom” we held so tightly prior to? And while they may still see the institution operating, what they will also see are the public wins of the fascist… the fact that he indicted DEI initiatives and the places charged with training future leaders to challenge oppression taught in their wisdom that the best approach was to “do what he says” even if it does save your institution. and that’s a hard pill to swallow.

But a Dean’s perspective would say, “but at least there is still an institution in existence to be critiqued. No one saves the institution that makes the right decision and goes bankrupt.”

In the land of the free and home of the brave, what I am learning is that there is both a severe deficit of freedom and a huge detriment to bravery.

#EducationalLEADERSHIP

#LawWasMeantForChallenge

#MoneyIsThePowerToControl

#WeTookAnOathToUpholdTheRuleOfLaw

#NotToConditionallyUpholdItOnlyWhenItSuitsUs

#WhoWinsWhenTheDonorsFeud?

#WhatsWorseThanOneBillionaire?

#Two…

#EspeciallyWhenTheyShareTheSameOppressivePoliticalViews

#YallStopMeWhenIStopTellingTheTruth

#ImTryingToFixYou

#ImTryingToGetTheseFolksWithNoStripesToBeOfficial

#IThinkSmallYallThinkBIGLY

#YourWholePassIsEndangeredTenMississippi