Dive Brief:
- Two professors at the William Mitchell College of Law are taking a tenure battle to court, accusing the college of breaching its faculty contracts to cut positions.
- Mitchell College offered faculty buyouts ahead of its planned merger with Hamline University School of Law but the professors’ complaint alleges it proposed changes to the tenure code to be able to fire additional faculty members, the Star Tribune reports.
- The complaint argues the proposed changes would allow administrators to fire faculty without “just cause” and release them from a requirement to pay one year’s salary and benefits, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
Hamline and William Mitchell announced their law school merger in February in the face of falling enrollment. Nationally, law school applications have been down in recent years, causing many to speculate over the future of the industry. Students have responded to the high cost of law school and the decreased likelihood of finding a well-paying job right after graduation, shying away from a JD. Some analysts, however, believe the slump is nearing its bottom and will soon rebound. Hamline and William Mitchell are considered casualties of the downturn, but because they are merging rather than closing, many faculty members will get to keep their jobs. Not all, however, hence the lawsuit.