ABA Fines, Publicly Censures Law School for Noncompliance With Anti-Discrimination Standard
ALM Media
Updated
American Bar Association in Chicago. July 16, 2011. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL.
Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law was publicly censured and must pay $15,000 for not complying with an American Bar Association standard that prohibits schools from discriminating against faculty members.
In the public censure, the ABA's Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar also found Thurgood Marshall Law violated an ABA standard requiring schools to file complete, accurate, and not misleading information to the ABA each year. In a second matter, the ABA section ordered remedial actions that raise questions about the school's legal education program, academic support for students and its admissions practices.
James Douglas, interim dean of Thurgood Marshall Law, denied that there is sex discrimination or sexual harassment happening at the school.
There were people who said, 'I think that there is sexual discrimination in the law school.' But no one has been able to find that to be a fact. The allegation and what the ABA is critical of is that that is what some of the females believe, and because some of the females believe it, we have an obligation to deal with it, Douglas said. They did not find that there was any truthfulness to the allegation, just the fact that the allegations existed and we didn't respond in a manner they though the law school should have responded.
The finding of noncompliance with the ABA's anti-discrimination standard comes out at a time that Texas Southern University is defending a lawsuit by a law professor and associate dean who claimed she was paid less, denied a promotion, stripped of supervisory authority and retaliated against daily.
The notice of the public censure said that a site team visited the school to investigate complaints of gender discrimination and sexual harassment and concluded that the school didn't comply with the anti-discrimination standard. Fact-finders visited the school again to examine the law school and university's policies for dealing with gender discrimination and sexual harassment, and how the policies had been applied to the law school.
After a report, response from the school and a hearing, the accreditation committee concluded in October 2016 the law school was not complying with the standard and it directed remedial action. There was an appeal and a hearing. The law school's interim dean and the university's president acknowledged that a perception of gender bias exists at the law school, the notice said. They said they were taking steps to address it. The president said his university wouldn't tolerate gender discrimination. The president was appointed subsequent to the particular actions that formed the basis for the site team's report, the notice said.
Douglas said that when TSU hired a new president, Austin Lane, it had nothing to do with what was happening in the law school. He said that Lane made the decision that the law school needed new leadership. Former Dean Dannye Holley resigned in September 2016, and Douglas is serving in his place until the university hires a new permanent dean. Lane and Holley, who remains at Thurgood Marshall as a criminal law professor, each didn't return a call seeking comment.
The ABA notice said that to remediate the violation and noncompliance, the school by Oct. 1 must develop a written plan to make an environment free of gender discrimination and sexual harassment. It must also develop and implement a program to educate and train faculty, staff and administrators about gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
Our job over the next year or so is to prove to them there are not gender bias issues and basically to show that even though there are no real facts, that we are doing everything we can to eliminate the perception. That's what our charge is, Douglas said.
He added that the school has no discrimination issue in hiring. The majority of Thurgood Marshall Law's faculty is female, seven of the nine senior associate deans are women and 10 of 13 major department heads are female.
Sex Discrimination Lawsuit
Douglas said that he does not know details of the sex discrimination allegations that women made about the law school.
However, one associate dean filed a lawsuit against TSU that includes details. Douglas said he wouldn't comment on the lawsuit, but noted it wasn't filed yet when the ABA began studying the school, and it's not related to the public censure.
But the lawsuit might provide the only glimpse of what women allegedly experienced at the school.
Faith Jackson, a professor and associate dean for external affairs at Thurgood Marshall Law, claimed she was paid less than her male counterparts and that despite getting a majority vote to become a full professor, Holley denied her the promotion and salary increase. Jackson on April 25, 2016, sued TSU, former president John Rudley and Holley.
The lawsuit alleged that Holley undermined Jackson's authority as an associate dean and refused to allow her to supervise or reprimand her staffers. He cut her out of hiring and firing decisions, barred her from meetings and failed to include her in important emails.
Holley has basically usurped all of plaintiff Jackson's authority, said the lawsuit.
In 2013 Jackson and other female faculty met with Rudley. He invited Holley to the meeting, calling Holley the victim, said the lawsuit. Rudley said angrily that he knew Jackson had filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, but that he didn't want the general counsel at the meeting because he could handle Jackson. The meeting disintegrated and was hostile and unprofessional. Rudley was visibly upset, according to the lawsuit.
She claimed she faced retaliation at work.
Holley encouraged Jackson's staffers to engage in hostile office rants. According to the lawsuit, one staffer called her the HNIC, which stands for Head N -r In Charge, and another encouraged co-workers to join in a Team Against Faith Campaign. The incidents and remarks happened almost daily.
It is not only pervasive but also general knowledge amongst [law school] employees they recognize that defendant Holley wants plaintiff Jackson out, and they wonder how plaintiff Jackson has been able to maintain her professional demeanor, the lawsuit said.
Jackson and her lawyer, Bui & Nhan partner Scott Bui of Houston, each didn't return a call seeking comment. TSU general counsel Andrew Hughey declined to comment on the pending litigation.
ABA Questions Academics and Admissions
The ABA section also suggested remedial action in a second matter relating to the size of Thurgood Marshall Law's entering classes, admissions policies and processes, students' credentials, the academic support program, attrition data and bar passage results.
It found that Thurgood Marshall Law was out of compliance with standards that: require law schools to maintain rigorous programs of legal education that prepare students to pass the bar exam and become lawyers; provide academic support to give students opportunities to finish school, graduate and become lawyers; and decline admission to applicants who don't appear capable of finishing school and passing the bar. Thurgood Marshall Law is out of compliance with interpretations of standards that lay out the factors that the ABA uses to assess a law school's academic program and list the things law schools can consider in admissions decisions, the notice said.
By Oct. 1, the school must develop a written plan to bring the school into compliance. It must provide the committee with admissions data and methodology about its admissions practices and policies for the fall 2017 entering class and for recruiting the fall 2018 class.
Where factors other than undergraduate grade point average and LSAT were used to support an admissions decision, the law school shall report those factors, explain how they were determined and applied in the review of applicant files, and report on any analyses that were done to review the outcomes of admissions decisions based on these factors, the notice said.
Until the ABA finds the school in compliance, it must send written communication to all students around the time they get their grades each semester to tell them what class quartile in which they fall, and provide data about first-time Texas bar passage rates broken down by class quartile.
Douglas said that Thurgood Marshall Law has a mission to educate minority lawyers and that most of the African-American lawyers in Texas went there.
We think we have an obligation to provide an opportunity for people to get a law degree, that would not be present if we did not exist. We take risks that some other law schools would not take, but we think that's a good thing. Some people at the ABA think it's a bad thing. So somehow we have to figure out a way we can all coexist, Douglas said. They say they want to increase the number of minorities in the profession, but they don't want to do what's necessary in order to make that happen.
Other ABA fact-finders will be visiting Thurgood Marshall Law to follow-up on both sets of remedial actions. If the school remains out of compliance, the committee could issue harsher sanctions.
Douglas said that Thurgood Marshall Law's accreditation is not on the line. The school is committed to working with the ABA to address the issues it raised.
