I think I have said enough about possible new law deans at UF. The truth is that it will not matter much since UF is huge and inertia is powerful. Plus, the challenges ahead are pretty clear. The curriculum must be designed to be relevant for today's practice. What is a far more interesting subplot is the reaction or lack of reaction by the faculty to the candidates.
I've been here many years and witnessed all manner of liberal (not left, oh my goodness way too squirrelly to do anything but dabble) shenanigans in programs, hiring, tenure, courses offered, and so on. Don't get me wrong, if things were controlled by the conservatives I would expect exactly the same thing only going the other way. Plus, some of them were good for students but I cannot say any correlation was intended except in the minds of the proponents.My friend Eric Fink reminds me of Phil Ochs' take on liberals -- ten degrees to the left when things are good and ten percent to the right when it affects them personally.
Still, although reputed to be charming, one of the candidates appears to be a Bushie who tried hard to suppress voting while in public office. I know, the other way to put this is that he wanted to suppress illegal voting. Fact is, it would have been mainly African American voters affected if he had been successful. And, no one seems to argue that contacting a judge directly to plead your case was appropriate. So what would you expect to be the take of so called liberals on this? Let's just say, I've seen faculty candidates go down for far far less.
But where is the UF faculty on this? First, a fair number, perhaps most, realize their lives will not change no matter so why bother. But where are those who claim to feel strongly and, in most other instances, are carefully guarding the purity of the institution? What's wrong? Cat got your tongue? Or is it just one big game?
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