September 14, 2007

Critics Say Leaders of Ave Maria Law School Violate 'Core Catholic Norms'

Sixteen Roman Catholic and Christian law professors signed a joint statement this week accusing the Ave Maria School of Law of management practices that appear “to violate core Catholic norms.”

The statement said the law school, which is planning a move from Michigan to Florida against the wishes of many of its faculty members, has also “violated several procedural norms of the secular academy.” The signers included current and former law professors at Cornell, Emory, Notre Dame, and UCLA, as well as Mark Sargent, the law dean at Villanova, a Roman Catholic university.

The school, located in Ann Arbor, Mich., plans to move in 2009 to Ave Maria, Fla. Some professors who oppose the move say they have been punished for speaking out. One of the school’s first tenured law professors has been suspended and barred from the campus, while two others have been denied tenure and placed on leave. The school also recently learned that it faces a potential threat to its accreditation.

“There are standards that we have for law schools and in particular Catholic law schools,” Michael Scaperlands, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, told the Naples Daily News. “From both an academic standpoint and from a Catholic-education standpoint, there seems to be an egregious violation of both.”

The Ave Maria law school’s dean, Bernard Dobranski, said the statement was backed by a “very small group of people” who have been spreading “disinformation and misinformation” about the law school. —Katherine Mangan

Comments

1. The claim that the problems with AMSL lie with a small group of malcontents are too transparent to be taken seriously. Rather, the fundamental flaw is to be found in the governance structure of the school. Messrs. Monaghan and Dobranski are operating under the theory that the existence of an academically-serious institution is compatible with the retention of unlimited decision-making authority by the founder and dean. As the president of the new UC-Irvine School of Law is also discovering in a slightly different context, that theory is contradicted by reality. The difference between the two is that AMSL, not being underwritten by potentially limitless quantities of public funds, is unlikely to survive the errors in which its leaders seem determined to persist.

   — Gustave    Sep 15, 07:38 AM    #

2. Here are 2 cases that demonstrate the bull-headed arrogance and unreasonableness of the celebrated faculty martyr, Steve Safranek (and his willingness to apparently abuse his clients to further his own personal views, much as he seems to be abusing his students and colleagues by stirring up an emotional fervor in order for his personal views to “win” in the end):

   MacFarlane v. MacFarlane, Ohio App. 8 Dist.,2006. (June 22, 2006) – “Succinctly, Wife argues that she and Husband were married in the Catholic Church, and both agreed to be bound by Catholic canon law regarding their marriage and any issues regarding their children. Accordingly, she contends, the trial court should have ceded its jurisdiction to a canonical court for resolution of all issues regarding the parties’ divorce. Wife’s argument is without merit….The record indicates that Wife fully participated in the divorce litigation for nearly one year before filing her request to arbitrate this matter. Not only does Wife’s action in filing her complaint refute her argument that the parties had agreed to arbitrate their marital disputes, but her significant participation in this case after it was filed waives any right to arbitration. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Wife’s motion….The court further found that due to her obsession with the divorce litigation and the issue of home schooling, Wife just did “not get it” with regard to her behavior and the children. The court identified several of Wife’s inappropriate behaviors with respect to her children: bringing the children to the courthouse to pass out a book she had written about the injustice of the court system and her divorce; telling the youngest child that “daddy broke up our home” and “the devil lives in daddy;” blatantly violating a court order to enroll the children in a traditional school, which caused the children to enter school one month late and hampered their transition from home schooling to traditional schooling; continuing to nurse Cleutus, contrary to medical advice, even though his teeth were rotting; and, refusing to engage in any written communication with Husband regarding the children. The court also noted that it had “great concern about the emotional stability of Mrs. Macfarlane.” (This client was the vehicle used to unsuccessfully test Safranek’s odd ideas about marriage, divorce and homeschooling, see http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/8/2006/2006-ohio-3155.pdf)

   Maki v. Laakko 88 F.3d 361 at 366 (C.A.6 (Mich.),1996) – “Safranek is right that this is a claim of first impression, perhaps because it is a claim of such breathtaking audacity that no one ever dared to raise it before. Certainly, no case, article, or treatise discussing ‘familial status’ discrimination ever thought to contemplate the idea that treating a child the same as other persons could be discrimination. All of the cases and commentators discuss the opposite possibility: that a landlord would refuse to rent or charge more if there were two adults and a child than if there were three adults.” (This client was the vehicle used to unsuccessfully test Safranek’s odd ideas about housing discirmination, see http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=6th/960192p.html )
   I don’t think Safranek has ever litigated any other cases other than these two, although he might have litigated a handful more (I invite those that know to post that information). Nevertheless, his track record seems utterly devastating both as to legal skill and reasonableness, stubbornness and arrogance.

   — Reality Check    Sep 15, 04:20 PM    #

3. Reality Check would justify illegal and immoral behavior that directly violates Core Catholic Teaching by the Dean and Board of AMSL because Safranek is “arrogant, stubborn, and not very skillful legally”???

   Regardless of the truth of your conclusions about Prof. Safranek’s character, I think Reality Check’s logic is abjectly foul, and amounts to the assertion of “he deserves the injustice forced upon him.”

   Dean Dobranski is on record acknowledging that Safranek is the ACTUAL founder of AMSL.

   Oh, and Reality Check, What about Pucillo and Lyons? Do they also deserve the injustice forced upon them because they too are “arrogant?”

   see” www.avewatch.org

   And

   fumare.blogspot.com

   for the real story.

   — Columcille    Sep 16, 09:09 AM    #

4. Thanks Reality Check for the cite… and, while I’ll refrain from making observations about his character, I think this opinion from the 6th Circuit speaks volumes about his ability as an attorney.

   My favorite lines were when the judge said his conduct brought the legal profession into “disrepute,” and when the judge said that it would be “ludicrous” to buy his argument!

   This is the same guy that the blogosphere has been so up in arms about? Wasn’t the argument agains the AMSL Dean that he couldn’t retain quality faculty? Firing this guy would seem to be consistent with the mandate to maintain a quality faculty!

   But, Columcille, I’ll take you up on your invitation and check out the post you referenced as “the real story”

   — UDM Alum    Sep 18, 03:10 PM    #

5. @Reality Check, you have never spoken to Prof. Safranek, have you? Have you even met the man? He took those aforementioned cases not to futher a social agenda, but because he wanted to help the clients. He put forth the best arguments he had. He took over the Macfarlane case because he felt sorry for the woman, the wife of a relatively famous Catholic author. Notice that in the very text of the second case it states that the client found Safranek, not the other way around: “The Laakkos indicated that the rent would increase by $50, prompting the Makis to contact attorney Stephen Safranek.”

   Your statements are nothing but calumny. It makes one wonder if you’re “stirring up an emotional fervor in order for [your] personal views to “win” in the end.”

   — Thursday    Sep 18, 04:06 PM    #

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