Dissent simmers at St. Mary's law school

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 16, 2001 by GARY MacEOIN

New dean denies he's altering school's social justice course

Three and a half years ago, when Barbara Aldave was fired as dean of St. Mary's University law school, it was a move that Marianist Fr. John Moder, university president, hoped would bring peace. Describing himself as battle weary from conflicts over her social justice approach to legal education, he charged a search committee with finding a dean who could unite a divided faculty.

So far, that goal is a long way off.

In late November, 10 faculty members stormed out of a meeting with the new dean, Bill Piatt, proving that sharp differences over the school's mission remain.

"You are not chairing the meeting. You are railroading," Ray Valencia, a law professor, shouted at Piatt before the walkout. Nearly a third of the faculty members present filed out, bolstered by cheers from a group that calls itself Juntos for St. Mary's.

Juntos, a coalition of students, alumni and community members, had viewed proceedings through glass doors. Protestors, who included several nuns, were immediately cleared from the building by armed guards.

The conflict in a nutshell is this: Dissenters claim the university's administration is dismantling programs that Aldave built up, including systems she put in place to train more Mexican-American and African-American lawyers. Such lawyers are needed, its supporters say, to defend the human rights of the 80 percent of people in South Texas who cannot afford a lawyer.

Those who prefer a more traditional law school approach, including many of San Antonio's power brokers, have long feared that Aldave's programs were undermining the school's standing. Aldave was fired in 1997 after nine years as dean.

The specific issue at the late November meeting was a slate of proposals that would require professors to grade first-year students more harshly, while raising the grade point average required to stay in school. The proposals, to be effective immediately, were approved.

Minority students will likely be most affected, according to Marsha Huie and Emily Hartigan, two of the professors who walked out.

Enhancing school's reputation

Supporters of the proposed change say it will raise the percentage of students who pass the Texas bar examination on the first try, thus enhancing the school's reputation.

Piatt insists that the school is on the right track. "We are all interested in producing attorneys who will work for social justice. But you must first become an attorney -- graduate and pass the bar exam. What motivates us is a love for this institution, a desire to see it strengthen, a desire to see our students do well academically and become attorneys."

During Aldave's tenure, minority enrollment in the first-year class had grown dramatically, from 7.5 to 43 percent, but the percentage of students passing the bar on the first try had sharply declined. Aldave's critics accused her of conducting a social experiment at the school's expense.

Thirteen members of the full-time faculty, who objected to the slate of proposals at the November meeting, argued that, because of different emphases in early schooling, minority students need rigorous training in basic academic and exam-taking skills and a strong learning environment, with the chance to make mistakes in the first year.

Over 92 percent of St. Mary's law school graduates do eventually pass the examination.

As part of Aldave's strategy for redesigning the law school to focus on unmet needs in South Texas, she introduced clinics to represent poor people whose human rights had been violated. She introduced courses in public interest law, environmental law, Catholic social teaching and alternative dispute resolution, as well as a course in capital punishment law, in which students did pro bono work on behalf of prisoners on Texas' crowded death row. She envisaged the creation of a network of resources equivalent to a major law firm that would devote itself exclusively to pro bono work, and got a $500,000 grant to start it.

International advocacy also had a role. St. Mary's leadership in drafting the Ban Land Mines treaty was recognized when 124 nations signed the treaty at Ottawa in December 1997.

All this was in line with Aldave's previous record, which included membership in Amnesty International, Bread for the World, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Gray Panthers, Pax Christi and NETWORK. Aldave served as the first lay president of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby.

National and even international praise was not long in coming. In 1997 the American Bar Association gave St. Mary's its "Public Interest Law School of the Year" award. The California-based Hispanic Business magazine, in its annual ratings of law schools for Hispanic students, ranks it third in the nation. Awards have come from the Association of American Law Schools and the Clinical Legal Education Association.

When Aldave was dismissed, more than 200 supporters showed up at a meeting and pleaded with Moder to reconsider. Refusing to yield, he assured students in a written statement that Aldave's vision for the law school continued to have his full support and that of the trustees.