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Welcome Message from the President
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Dispelling the White Fog
On August 5, 1974, I received a letter from ABA consultant James P. White officially conveying the bad news that Cooley's application for provisional approval had been sent back to the accreditation committee. I replied immediately.
"Dear Dean White:
We have received your letter of August 1, 1974, which sets forth the resolution of the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association, adopted on July 21, 1974.
Your letter does not, however, address itself to the mandate of Rule 1(8) of the Rules of Procedure for the approval of law schools.
That subrule requires the Council, through the consultant, to report to the dean,
"...setting forth wherein the school fails to meet the standards and Council interpretations..."
Your letter makes no attempt to inform Cooley Law School "wherein it fails to meet the standards."
Rather, your letter states that the inspection report expresses the concerns of the Council, and then calls our attention to 12 separate sections of the standards, which are simply transcribed verbatim from the printed standards.
The 12 standards recited in your letter are not related to the inspection report.
For example, you call our attention to standards 201, 203, 205, 206, 207, 209, and 210.
The inspection report, at page 9, says:
"Standards 201 through 211 concern generally the organization and administration of law schools. The team believes that the Thomas M. Cooley Law School meets these standards..."
Now if the inspection report says we meet the standards, and if the inspection report expresses the concerns of the Council, why do you call our attention to these standards?
The Board of Directors, officers, faculty, and students of Cooley Law School are firmly committed to full compliance with the ABA standards. This commitment was made known to Professor Millard Ruud, Consultant on Legal Education to the ABA, when he visited us over a year ago, and has been constantly reiterated since that time.
Cooley Law School has now been inspected on three different occasions by a total of six deans, two head librarians, and one professor.
With respect to its physical plant, its library, its faculty, its administration, and its academic program, Cooley has been found in compliance with all applicable standards of the American Bar Association.
The Council has now chosen, without stating its reasons, to withhold provisional approval for Cooley Law School at least until the mid-winter meeting in February, 1975, thereby postponing for Cooley students the equal protection and benefit of certain federal laws relating to student financial aid, and certain state laws and court rules relating to admissions to the bar.
In its home state of Michigan, Cooley Law School already enjoys the recognition and approval of the State Board of Education, the State Board of Law Examiners, the State Bar of Michigan, and the encouragement of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, and the leaders of the legal profession, including the State Delegate to the American Bar Association.
We invite you to come to Lansing and visit Cooley Law School. The members of the Council and its accreditation committee are also being invited to visit the school.
If you believe that still another inspection team should be appointed, and still another inspection report prepared, I urge you to nominate the inspectors at an early date so that their work may be completed in an orderly and timely fashion."
I sent copies of my exchange with Dean White to 46 people, mostly Council members and accreditation committee members. I invited them to come and see us.
There was no rush to our front door, but in November, Jim White and Millard Ruud did come to Lansing and they met with our board, faculty and students. I thought perhaps the ice was melting. On November 19, 1974 I wrote Jim White thanking him for visiting us, and summarizing the progress I thought we had made. My letter concludes by saying that we had agreed on January 12-15, 1975 as dates for a further inspection of the school. I added a reminder that Rule 1(6) provided that the inspectors be agreeable to the school.
It was to prove a sticking point over the coming weeks.
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This Page was last updated on:
10/28/2004