Cutting in Line
You
might think that law professors are sticklers for following the rules. In fact,
the opposite is true. They do not regard rules, and especially University
Regulations as applying to them. I have seen this applied to tenure standards
and the composition of committees. I’d have to say in fairness to law professors, it is clear that Universities
ignore their own rules and even state law when it suits them.
There
are many example, but one that stands out is hiring spouses. Under state and
federal law as well as university regulation when a position is open it must be
publicly advertised. This is in part to make sure there is no favoritism and so
that people of all genders and races have a chance to apply.
The
usual hiring season takes place in the fall and winter. So it was with some
surprise that Dean Bob came to the faculty with a candidate for an
environmental law position in the Spring. He said the University President wanted us to hire
her. She had not gone through the usual
recruitment process, we did not need a teacher in the area, and we had not
given public notice of the availability of a position. The faculty resisted so
to some extent and the Dean explained that the medical school wanted to hire
her husband and part of the deal was that we hire his wife. When asked what the
consequences were if we did not hire her his answer was “catastrophic.” The
faculty voted to make an offer although no one knew what catastrophic meant.
She accepted the offer, basically saying to other would be applicants “Get the fuck out of my way? Don’t you know who I sleep with?” and with the understanding most or all of her salary would
be paid by the central administration and the med school. In effect, a job for
her was part of the salary of the hot shot med school hire. No way around this.
After
she was hired, in order to “comply” with State, federal and university
regulations, a public notice of the job was issued. Twenty people applied. What
they did not know is that the School had
violated the law and already hired someone for the job opening they were just
hearing about. I raised the issue with several people in an effort to determine
who had made the decision to violate the law and the response was dead silence. Law schools are experts at the “coverup.” But this story has an even less happy ending. Within two years the hot shot med
school hired decided he hated it at the med school and the school was left with someone who would not
have been hired teaching in an area that was already covered. The last I heard
she had moved to who knows where with her husband but was still on the faculty
teaching remotely or occasionally.
When
the rules are bent to allow spouses to cut in line one question that comes up
is what to do if the couple splits up. Actually there is answer to that – you
do nothing. So, in many instances, the spouse cuts in line through some
unlawful act of the university or law school, is hired and then stays even
though the rationale for hiring him or her has long since disappeared. Remember
that the trailing spouse’s job was a form of income the person who was sought
after. Evidently, that income is retained even who the sought after person is
divorced, quits, or dies.
Often when the spouse is hired he or
she is in a different department. This raises the question of what happens of
one spouse gets tenure and the other one does not. If one department really
wants to retain the performing spouse, then the standards have be lowered for
the other one.
Maybe the most unusual spouse issue
I have seen involved a professor who was hired on the merits. His wife was hired to take the position as a
legal writing instructor which is lower paying job with no promise of eventual
tenure. The wife and husband desperately wanted for the wife to be elevated to
a regular faculty position. She wrote articles and applied through the normal
process. The husband was a decent teacher and good scholar but a bit of a jerk so
there was not going to be a free pass.
After going through the process and being interviewed, she was not made
an offer. It is entirely possibly that the collective hope was that if she were
rejected maybe the husband would leave. The problem was his jerkiness was
pretty widely known and he was not likely to be recruited. Personally, I liked
him because, in his own way, he too was an outsider and spoke truths no one wanted to hear.
It is an understatement to say they
were bitter. It was a great example of the sense of entitlement of people who
graduate from elite schools have. She was very upset about being a lowly
writing instruction although their combined income was quite high. For some
reason and am not sure why, their
bitterness became aimed at each other. Their divorce would make most messy
divorces seem amicable. She eventually did get a regular teaching position at a
low ranking school.
Remember those articles she wrote while
hoping for a job at her ex husbands school?
Well
shortly after the breakup he began listing them as having been “ghost written”
or ghost co-authored by himself. In short, he was now claimed that they had
dishonestly represented as her work he had done as her work. The raised a bit
of an ethical question. Were they both lying or just him when he claimed to
have written he article with her name on them. Always wishing to make a bad
situation worse, the battle between exes took to the internet when he sent an
email with the subject “ungrateful bitches.” That pretty much put an end to any
chance he had to move up through the law school ranks. In fact, when this all
happened it was rumored that he had a visiting offer from Harvard. That was
withdrawn.