Beautiful News!: JD Junkyard contributor "JohnDoeee" tipped me off to this development. On January 31, 2014, Bridget Crawford posted a Faculty Lounge entry labeled “‘Financial Exigency’ at Albany Law School?” Here is the full text of her piece:
http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2014/01/financial-exigency-at-albany-law-school.html
“According to a November 19, 2013 letter issued by AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, Albany Law School's "administration and governing board have announced that, because of serious financial difficulties, notifications of faculty layoffs will be issued shortly."
The newly-formed AAUP chapter at Albany certainly disagrees that "financial exigency" exists. In a letter dated January 11, 2014, that group states (here):
The Chapter maintains that there is no showing of a bona fide institutional financial exigency or of individual faculty incompetence. Accordingly, no justification for faculty terminations exists. Since no faculty terminations are justified, the Chapter takes no position on what the order of layoffs would be if terminations were warranted under a state of financial exigency. In the absence of evidence of anything remotely resembling a bona fide financial exigency, firing any faculty member would depart from nationally accepted standards of law school governance.
The Albany Law School Chapter of the AAUP has made various documents available here. This situation will be one to watch.” [Emphasis mine]
I want to thank all of you who have helped educate the general public about the law school scam. As a direct result of those collective efforts, law school applications have plummeted for the last three years. Hell, first year law school enrollment hit a 36 year low this past Fall. Now, the bitches and hags at Albany Law Sewer are running scared.
Other Coverage: Paul Campos provided the following insight in his January 31, 2014 entry, “Albany Law School to fire tenured faculty based on merit evaluations?”:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/01/albany-law-school-to-fire-tenured-faculty-based-on-merit-evaluations
“In this case the AAUP standards seem to be merely precatory, as lawyers say, which means that the only cost Albany incurs by ignoring them is reputational, assuming of course that the school follows whatever procedures it’s contractually obligated to follow when firing employees. (Update: A three year old version of the school’s faculty handbook says tenured faculty can be fired only for cause or financial exigency. See Appendix B at 14).
But that reputational cost could be quite considerable, if the school were to go so far as to fire tenure-track and especially tenured faculty because it’s in such severe financial straits (Ex post facto rationalizations that such people were fired as a result of “merit” evaluations are likely to ring hollow).
A school is likely to go to great lengths to avoid the bad publicity such a move would produce, by firing lower-level staff, offering buyouts to senior faculty, cutting faculty salaries, and taking every step short of the most radical possible interventions, which are, in ascending order of radicalism, firing tenure track faculty, opening a Holiday Inn Express where the library used to be, and not giving top administrators greater than COL raises this year.” [Emphasis mine]
As with any scam, the perpetrators must convey confidence in their product or service. My guess is that the rodents at this commode will terminate janitors, groundskeepers, and adjunct faculty before getting to the grossly overpaid, failed attorneys masquerading as “scholars.”
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/02/tenured-faculty.html
Paul Caron published an article entitled “Tenured Faculty Layoffs Coming at Albany Law School?” - on February 1, 2014. From his opening:
“Tax Prof Bridget Crawford (Pace) reports on the news that Albany Law School's "administration and governing board have announced that, because of serious financial difficulties, notifications of faculty layoffs will be issued shortly."
Albany's bonds have been downgraded in recent months, and its 1L enrollment has declined 27% over the past five years:
2009: 255
2010: 236
2011: 235
2012: 196
2013: 187” [Emphasis mine]
This school is certainly feeling the effects of a smarter consumer base. People have caught onto the fact that the U.S. lawyer job market is GLUTTED. Furthermore, college grads now recognize that they may end up incurring monstrous sums of NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt for garbage employment prospects. Plus, Albany Law Sewer is ranked as the 132nd greatest, most incredible law school in the nation - by US “News” & World Report.
Why the hell should any prospective student take on such risks, especially when the banksters and academics have no skin in the game?!?! Yes, those reaping ALL of the benefits of this rigged $y$tem bear NONE of the perils! Anyone who defends this arrangement is a vile piece of garbage.
Conclusion: Albany Law School is an independent “institution of higher education,” i.e. it is not anchored to a larger university. As such, the pigs must rely on a steady stream of law lemmings. When enrollment drops, the swine have less revenue to operate. In the end, the jackals like toact as though they are typical companies. For $ome rea$on, the cockroaches conveniently “forget” to mention that they are propped up by taxpayer funds and the federally-backed student loan scheme. Now, the bastards get to exercise their supposed business acumen.