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Welcome Message from the President
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A Favorable Verdict
By August of 1976, my excursion into the nether lands of partisan politics had run its course. The Republicans chose Ann Arbor Congressman Marvin Esch as their candidate for the United States Senate. I ran a distant second in the Primary Election.
As it turned out, the voters did me a favor. I was able to turn my undivided attention to the Rule Four hearing ordered by the American Bar Association to revoke Cooley's accreditation. It was scheduled for Wednesday, September First.
We had a good feeling about the Oliphant Commission hearing. The panel listened attentively to all of our testimony and they appeared to be interested in the numerous documents we offered in evidence.
But as the weeks went by and September morphed into October and October gave way to November, there was more than a little cause to worry about the Commission's report. After all, we had experienced so many disappointments and disillusionment in dealing with the American Bar Association. It wasn't hard to conjure up another frustrating scenario.
The transcript of the September 1 hearing consumed nearly four hundred pages of text. It took a while to prepare and still more time for the Commissioners to digest. It wasn't until December that the Commission's report landed on my desk.
By then, I had already been informed by Dean Jim White, the ABA's Consultant on Legal Education that Cooley was due for yet another inspection. I replied by suggesting that it take place near the end of March of the following year.
That exchange gave me some hope. If the Oliphant Commission was going to recommend revocation of our accreditation, why would they be talking about another routine re-inspection? Or was it possible that the next inspection would merely be staged to confirm a decision to put us out of business?
The answer came in a welcome missive from Professor Oliphant and his colleagues. Their eighteen page report was a complete vindication of our position, our program and our status as an approved law school.
While the Commissioners declined to point a finger of blame toward anyone, it was clear that they understood our pique over the way the Coco team had gone about their assignment. Quite pointedly, they observed that we had been told that the Coco team would not recommend decertification; that the first draft of their report did in fact recommend it; and that we had reason to distrust the ABA.
After a thorough discussion of what the Commission called the Coco report "mix up," the Commissioners got down to the nitty gritty issues or 'concerns' that had been alleged against us.
My heart jumped for joy as I read their conclusions.
"It was alleged that the law school does not have a program consistent with sound educational policies. The Commission was unable to find support for this allegation."
The Commission's report went on to find that we had adequate financial resources; that our faculty were in fact heavily involved in academic research and writing; that we did have a sufficient number of full time faculty without administrative responsibilities; that our faculty did have responsibility for development of the academic program; that we did maintain conditions adequate to attract and retain a competent faculty; that there was no evidence to conclude that our library collection was insufficient; that our librarian, professor Peter Kempel, met the definition of a full time librarian; that we had enough office space; and that we provided sufficient seating capacity for our students.
On point after point, the Commission concluded, that it was unable to find support for the ABA's allegations; that it found no evidence to support the allegations, or that the evidence was insufficient to justify the ABA's conclusions.
It was a high moment of satisfaction for me. The three Commissioners, Professor Robert Oliphant, Professor Frances Farmer and attorney John Nolan were, after all, appointees of the American Bar Association. Our opponents had picked the jury, but the verdict was all ours.
In January of 1977, our Board of Directors met and I reported in detail about the Oliphant Commission report. The mood in the room was euphoric. A motion was made and adopted that I should petition the American Bar Association for immediate full approval. After all, the Commission's findings seemed to dismiss all of the Bar's reservations about us. There was really nothing else for us to do.
In February of 1977, the accreditation committee and the Council met and received the Oliphant Commission report. In their usual grudging and negative fashion, they adopted a resolution which simply acknowledged that the Oliphant report was received, and there being no basis to revoke our prior approval, provisional accreditation of Cooley Law School was continued.
They gave no consideration to our request for full accreditation.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004