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Welcome Message from the President
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A Swirl of Controversy
From the moment Remer Tyson’s opening salvo hit the street on August 5, 1973, the public image of Thomas M. Cooley Law School changed. What had been described as a “fledgling” school was suddenly a “controversial” school.
The Free Press editorial entitled “Brennan Can’t Well Serve Both Court, Law School,” was followed quickly by a similar comment by the editors of the Detroit News. Interestingly, the News opined that the great jurist for whom our school was named, Thomas McIntyre Cooley, would never have been guilty of the tawdry conduct of ‘moonlighting.’ In fact Cooley was a professor in the law department of the University of Michigan during most of his judicial career. Another interesting irony: Cooley was defeated for reelection largely through the efforts of the Detroit News, which excoriated him for holding against the paper in a celebrated libel case.
On Wednesday, August 8, under another Remer Tyson byline, was the revelation that “Justice Brennan Has Son on Court Payroll.” True enough. I had hired Tom, Jr. as a clerical intern, at less than half the salary paid to regular law clerks. He was then a pre law student at MSU. He spent most of his time culling through the Michigan Reports in search of the various ceremonial transcripts that record presentations of portraits or eulogies for deceased members of the court. The index he compiled was eventually published by the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society.
But of course, the issue was not whether Tom was earning his money or doing something useful for the court. Hiring a relative invites the naughty pejorative of nepotism, and I was vulnerable to the criticism.
Nevertheless, I called a press conference, to answer the Free Press. It was well attended. Those were the days of Watergate. It was a time when every accusation against a public official, however far fetched or patently motivated by ill will, struck a responsive cord in the public consciousness. The conventional wisdom is that you can’t fight a newspaper unless you own one. Still, I felt very put upon. I was determined to have my say. To set the record straight.
The canons of judicial ethics specifically encourage judges to support and engage in legal education. The list of judges in Michigan and elsewhere who teach in law schools is both voluminous and prestigious. Judges serve on the American Bar Association’s Council on Legal Education and on its accreditation committees. They teach in seminars and participate in mock trials and moot court proceedings.
All of these things take time. But it is not time away from the job of being a judge. On the contrary, it is time devoted to judicial activity in the most complete and proper sense.
I flailed away for the benefit of the fourth estate. I characterized the Free Press reporter’s article as a “vitriolic and unjustified personal attack.” I said that Tyson had “permitted himself and his newspaper to become the spokesmen for the educational elitists who have vowed to destroy Cooley Law School.”
About that time, Governor William Milliken got into the act. He suggested that I choose between the court and the law school. I told the press that the Governor’s comment was premature, and that he should leave the matter of judicial ethics to the Judicial Tenure Commission where it belongs.
The Lansing State Journal did not share the Detroit Free Press’ view of my conduct. In a much more balanced story entitled, “Brennan Replies to Dual Role Foes,” Hugh Morgan, a writer for the Associated Press quoted from my prepared statement, in which I emphasized the struggle in legal education between those who wanted to increase opportunity and those who wanted to control the number of new lawyers. The State Journal ran an editorial critical of Governor Milliken’s remark, which they called a “Snap Judgment.” Columnist Willard Baird, writing under the headline, “Law School Never a Secret,” pointed out that many in the Capitol were puzzled over the flap.
On balance, over the next few days, I was not totally unhappy about the press coverage. What emerged was not so much the image that I had done something wrong as the sense that I was engaged in a heated controversy. And that controversy had more to do with whether Cooley should be allowed to survive than it had to do with anything I had done.
My mail ran about four to one favorable. Judge Jim Ryan wrote a powerful defense of me and the school. It was published in the Free Press. Jack Cote, with approval of the members of our board, fired off another supportive letter. Most touching was a handwritten note from one Ben F. Taylor, L.L.B., a 1924 graduate of the Detroit College of Law, who wrote that all but two of his law school instructors had been sitting judges who taught from 5 PM until 10 PM.
But the bottom line was quite different from the objective of Deans Gordon and St. Antoine and their newspaper allies. With every story, the number of applications to Cooley Law School mushroomed. By attempting to destroy Cooley, they had practically insured its survival.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004