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Welcome Message from the President
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Seeds of Controversy
The members of the State Board of Education’s committee of scholars who reviewed our articles of incorporation were outraged over my accusation that some of them were burdened with a conflict of interest because they were associated with competing law schools. Their sole interest, so they claimed, was in the improvement and advancement of legal education.
After the charter was issued, however, several members of that committee dropped all pretext of impartiality and disinterest to become vigorous opponents of Cooley Law School.
When word got out that the board of law examiners had recognized Cooley, their opposition turned to animosity. And when we sent out invitations to the Founder’s Banquet they went ballistic.
Stan Beattie was from the very beginning a stalwart supporter. He took a lot of heat from the establishment types for having signed the resolution recognizing Cooley. One such occasion was at a gathering of the Harvard Club of Detroit. Stan was enjoying the reception when Wade McCree, then a judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals and later Solicitor General of the United States, approached and began berating him for having approved “Tom Brennan’s store front law school.” Stan went toe to toe with the good judge. He was not one to back down.
In early June of 1973, Stan Beattie was, as he later described it, “summoned to Armageddon”. The summons came from no less a personage than the chief justice of the supreme court, Thomas M. Kavanagh. The occasion was a luncheon meeting at the Canopy restaurant in Brighton on June 4, 1973. Present were Kavanagh, Justice John Swainson, U. of M. law school dean Ted St. Antoine, Wayne State law school dean, Donald H. Gordon and the beleaguered Stan Beattie.
The subject of discussion was the Thomas M. Cooley Law School and the action of the state board of law examiners recognizing it. In short, Stanley Beattie was being called on the carpet to explain what he and the other members of the board had done. Stan stood his ground.
In truth, the two law school deans were hoping to persuade the supreme court to bring pressure on me to drop the project. In that endeavor they had perhaps falsely assumed that the Democrats on the court would be quick to censure me. They misjudged Tom Kavanagh and John Swainson. Both had heard me speak of the law school many times. I had kept the entire court posted on everything we were doing. John and Alice Swainson were, in fact, very dear friends of Polly and me dating back to our time together on the circuit court. Tom Kavanagh, despite our frequent disagreements, shared my view about elitism in legal education, and was always friendly toward Cooley.
About that time, Justice Charles Levin and Justice Thomas G. Kavanagh (not related to Chief Justice Thomas M. Kavanagh) invited me to lunch at the Lansing City Club. They had an important matter to talk about. It turned out that they were aware of the meeting in Brighton and had learned that the law school deans, particularly Dean Gordon, were not about to drop their vigorous opposition to Cooley.
I still naively believed that legal educators were all working toward the same ends, and I wrote to Don Gordon offering to get together with him and discuss whatever issues he might have. That letter went forward on July 9, 1973. Two days later, Don Gordon replied, writing that he was about to leave for Hawaii, and would not have time to see me. The same day, he penned a two page letter to Chief Justice Kavanagh requesting that the following issues be placed on the agenda of the court:
“1. The propriety of the organizing and managerial role of a supreme court justice in the establishment and operation of a new law school when that role involves dealings with such state agencies as the Board of Law Examiners (whose members are approved by the Governor upon recommendation by the court), the State Board of Education and the office of the Attorney General (both of which litigate before the court).
2. The propriety of the solicitation of funds primarily from lawyers involving the use of a justice’s name and for the support of an enterprise in which he has a personal interest.
3. The identification of a justice’s position on the court in furtherance of the solicitation of enrollments in an institution in the operation of which he is a principal.
4. The public interest in the maintenance of basic standards of legal education in Michigan, an interest which is jeopardized by the premature and improvident approval of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School by the State Board of Law Examiners.”
I don’t know when I first saw a copy of Don Gordon’s letter. I don’t recall being aware of it at the time. The chief justice did not place the matter on the court’s agenda. I like to think he was fully aware of the fact that I had done nothing wrong; that Cooley was not a proprietary law school as Gordon tried to insinuate: that judges are in fact encouraged by the code of judicial conduct to work for the improvement and advancement of legal education; that judges have long been associated with law schools, both as teachers and as board members; that the use of judges names in general solicitation for charitable causes and especially educational programs is entirely ethical; and that the role of approving or disapproving educational institutions was properly left to the board of education, the board of law examiners and the American Bar Association.
On the other hand, the chief justice may have simply realized that I was about to be the object of a furious public attack, and he didn’t see any need to be a part of it.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004