A Civil-Rights Center Is Under Threat at UNC. It’s Not Alone in Being Targeted.
By J. Clara ChanAugust 2, 2017
“We at Carolina Law will continue the work of Julius Chambers,” wrote Martin Brinkley (above), the law-school dean, referring to the civil-rights lawyer who founded a center there that files lawsuits on behalf of low-income and minority clients.Gerry Broome, AP Images
The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina system is one step closer to crippling a law-school center’s ability to give its students a real-world opportunity to represent low-income and minority clients — a cornerstone of the center’s three-pronged mission. And although the controversy surrounding the proposed ban is partly a product of the system’s dynamics, it could send a message about the viability of similar centers nationwide.
The UNC School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights, founded in 2001 by the civil-rights lawyer Julius L. Chambers, does both the work of a law clinic through its client representation, as well as academic work on civil rights. Other prominent public universities feature similar centers, including the University of California at Berkeley School of Law’s Human Rights Center, Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Education and Civil Rights, the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Human Rights and Civil Liberties, and the University of Minnesota Law School’s Human Rights Center.
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“We at Carolina Law will continue the work of Julius Chambers,” wrote Martin Brinkley (above), the law-school dean, referring to the civil-rights lawyer who founded a center there that files lawsuits on behalf of low-income and minority clients.Gerry Broome, AP Images
The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina system is one step closer to crippling a law-school center’s ability to give its students a real-world opportunity to represent low-income and minority clients — a cornerstone of the center’s three-pronged mission. And although the controversy surrounding the proposed ban is partly a product of the system’s dynamics, it could send a message about the viability of similar centers nationwide.
The UNC School of Law’s Center for Civil Rights, founded in 2001 by the civil-rights lawyer Julius L. Chambers, does both the work of a law clinic through its client representation, as well as academic work on civil rights. Other prominent public universities feature similar centers, including the University of California at Berkeley School of Law’s Human Rights Center, Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Education and Civil Rights, the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Human Rights and Civil Liberties, and the University of Minnesota Law School’s Human Rights Center.
Though several law professors said it’s unusual for a law school’s center to be the target of scrutiny, this isn’t the first time that a law clinic — which can sometimes be housed under a center — has faced interference from state legislatures, governing boards, or other bodies. Since 1968, there have been at least 36 publicized cases of interference in law clinics at American universities, according to a study published in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.
In Maryland in 2010, state senators voted in favor of a proposal to withhold funding from the University of Maryland’s law school until it submitted a report listing all lawsuits that had been filed by its environmental-law clinic. The clinic had been criticized by lawmakers over a suit it filed against a poultry company about its chicken waste disposal — a move that some legislatures said unfairly targeted the poultry industry. The proposal ultimately did not pass.
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That same year in Louisiana, state lawmakers proposed a bill to prevent law clinics from pursuing litigation against government agencies and companies, raising state constitutional claims, and representing individuals seeking monetary damages. If passed, the bill would have affected law schools at Tulane University, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, Loyola University New Orleans, and Southern University. But concerns over how the bill might harm legal education and state environmental legal representation — especially given that the state was dealing with a vast oil spill at the time — led the bill to be defeated in committee.
Members of the academic law community nationwide have largely condemned UNC’s proposed ban on litigation, and more than 600 law-school administrators and faculty members signed on to a letter condemning the policy, stating that it would “needlessly tarnish” the school’s reputation.
“It’s a threat to all of us,” said Jon C. Dubin, associate dean for clinical education at the Rutgers University School of Law.
Carol L. Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also publicly criticized the proposed ban in a letter sent to Anna Spangler Nelson, the chair of the Board of Governors committee that approved the policy (it goes to a full board vote in September). Ms. Spangler was the only committee member who voted against the ban, according to The News & Observer.
A ‘Terrible Precedent’
Supporters of the proposal, which was first presented by Steven B. Long, a board member, say that it is against the university’s academic mission to be engaging in litigation against other parts of the state. Others, like the Board of Governors member and lawyer Joe Knott, say that a law school should not be providing its students with clinical practice.
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“A law school is one thing; a law firm is another thing,” Mr. Knott said at the committee meeting on Tuesday. “Law firms have clients. Schools have students. Schools and students do one thing. Law firms and clients do another.”
But if UNC’s board votes in favor of the ban, a “terrible precedent” will be set, says Peter A. Joy, director of Washington University School of Law’s Criminal Justice Clinic, regarding how much intervention a governing board could have on the day-to-day operations of a university.
“Does it get to the point of course by course? Inspection and approval?” Mr. Joy asked. “If we get to that point, then we basically have gone to the role of what happens in the totalitarian government.”
We have a substantial number of students who actively choose to come to our law school because of the center’s presence there.
Judith Wegner, a former UNC law-school dean, said the potential impact on prospective law students — many of whom may be interested in the school because of the Center for Civil Rights — would be negative.
“We have a substantial number of students who actively choose to come to our law school because of the center’s presence there, and I think that that draw would probably be eliminated for many of them, so they may decide to go to other places,” Ms. Wegner told The Chronicle in July.
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“It will significantly dishearten many people if this kind of action, intervention that’s pretty definitely politically grounded, were to prevail,” she added.
And even for those not specifically interested in the civil-rights center, Mr. Joy said, the optics of board interference would have an impact on potential students.
“Most law students are looking for a university that respects the autonomy of the law school and the faculty and the dean and the autonomy of the university president or chancellor,” he said. “When it looks like the university board is getting in, who knows what will be next.”
The Board of Governors is scheduled to vote on the policy on September 8. Until then, faculty members, students, and alumni in support of the center are still considering ways that they can push back.
“We at Carolina Law will continue the work of Julius Chambers,” Martin H. Brinkley, the dean of the University of North Carolina School of Law, wrote in an email to the law-school community. “There is a great deal of that work left to be done. We will continue to train the lawyers who will do it and who will uphold the great tradition of freedom that mark this law school, this University, and our state and country.”