Ave Maria School of Law

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Ave Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law school, is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the 2006-2007 academic year, there were 380 students enrolled from a variety of states, countries, and religious backgrounds.[1] Ave Maria espouses a natural law philosophy and teaches law within the context of the Catholic intellectual tradition. Politically, its student body and faculty tend to lean in a nonliberal direction.

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[edit] History

Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, supports the school through his Ave Maria Foundation and serves as the chairman of the board of governors of the school, which also includes Robert P. George, Edward Cardinal Egan, Adam Cardinal Maida, and Michael Uhlmann and included before their deaths Bowie Kuhn and John Cardinal O'Connor.[2]

Ave Maria's beginnings lie in discussions between former Oakland County prosecutor Dick Thompson and Monaghan. In 1998, several professors left University of Detroit Mercy School of Law after a dispute regarding the invitation of a pro-choice Michigan Supreme Court justice to give the oath at the end of the school's Red Mass, providing a core faculty. With the financial support of Monaghan, Dobranski was recruited to serve as dean. The school currently has twenty-one professors including Robert Bork, one visiting professor, and six legal writing lecturers.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia assisted Ave Maria's leadership in developing the school's curriculum, and in 1999 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the school's first annual Ave Maria Lecture.

The inaugural class entered the new school in 2000, and the school gained full accreditation from the American Bar Association in 2005.

The School of Law's Board of Governors has approved a move after the graduation of the class of 2009 to the newly planned town of Ave Maria, about 30 miles east of Naples, Florida, where the new campus of Ave Maria University, another institution supported by Monaghan's Ave Maria Foundation, is to be built. This is a matter of controversy within the school, as many of the students and faculty are opposed to such a move.

[edit] Ranking

In 2003, the first graduating class passed the Michigan bar examination at a rate of 93% among first-time takers, which was the top rate in Michigan. In 2004, the school had 100% Michigan bar passage rate, and in 2006, the passing rate was 96%, which is the highest overall among Michigan law schools. In 2007, the school had the lowest Michigan bar passage rate of all law schools in Michigan.

Ave Maria's Moot court team has won top honors three years in a row for the state-wide competition held annually for the last 5 years.[1].

Ave Maria has been listed in the fourth tier of law schools by U.S. News & World Report.[3]

[edit] Campus move to Florida

A proposal and decision to move the Ave Maria School of Law from its current location in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Collier County, Florida as part of the Ave Maria community, has generated controversy among students and alumni of the college.

The Ave Maria School of Law was founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan in 1999 with the intention of being a world-class law school basing teachings in the Catholic faith. Bernard Dobranski was named the first Dean of the school. (Ave Maria School of Law media release, 1999) The school opened in 2000.

In 2002, Monaghan declared plans to create Ave Maria University, within the Domino's Farms office park in Ann Arbor, centered around a planned 25-story crucifix that generated debate in the area. (Detroit News, 2002) The proposal was rejected by Ann Arbor Township, citing complaints about drainage and environmental impact on the area as reasoning for the denial. Other residents questioned those reasons. (Naples Daily News, 2003) Later that year, Monaghan stated a plan to instead establish Ave Maria University and a surrounding community in Collier County, Florida. He stated that Ave Maria College would eventually close and students would be invited to transfer to the new school. (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2002) In 2005, the Board of Governors of Ave Maria School of Law voted to implement term limits on Board members (which have subsequently been suspended, citing the need for Board members familiar with the move), resulting in the removal of four members of the board including Dr. Charles E. Rice, who had voiced opposition to the relocation of the school into the Florida location. Rice had written a letter to the Naples Daily News earlier in the year stating that the Board had, in September of 2003, decided against the move. (The Wanderer Newspaper, 2005)

The Board, with four new members appointed on December 5, 2005, decided at a meeting on March 8, 2006 to reconsider the move to Florida, with Dobranski stating in a decision on the school Web site [1] the decision would involve all stakeholders, including faculty, students and the Board, in the process. Following that decision, a faculty group and alumni passed resolutions calling for Dobranski to step down from his position. A total of 150 students, of a body of approximately 360, signed a petition asking the Board to refrain from pursuing the Florida move further. Professor Stephen Safranek stated the move could jeopardize the ABA accreditation, and critics suggested the move was too soon for a school started just a few years earlier. Board member Bowie Kuhn said the criticism was unfair and concern was premature, as the feasibility study was not expected to be completed prior to late 2006. He also noted that if the move was approved, it would not take place until likely 2009. (American Lawyer, 2006)

On September 17, 2006 the Alumni Board passed a no-confidence resolution against the administration.[2] Alunni board elections held in November 2006 resulted in the election of a known critic of the alumni board's no-confidence vote as the alumni board president. However, the majority of alumni board members continue to support the resolution. In the most widely anticipated alumni board elections to date, two of the three new alumni board members were supporters of the no-confidence resolution.

The Board of Trustees voted on February 17, 2007, to move the school to Collier County, Florida. On February 20, 2007, Dean Dobranski made the announcement to the law school community that Ave Maria School of Law will be moving to Ave Maria, Florida. However, the move will happen in the Fall of 2009.

The Accreditation Committee of the American Bar Association notified the school in the summer of 2007 that it had "not established compliance with Standard 405(a), regarding the obligation of a law school to establish and maintain conditions adequate to attract and retain a competent faculty," according to a letter released by the Dean of the School, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education [4]. This is reported to be based on the voluntary and involuntary departure of numerous faculty in opposition to the planned move to Florida.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Fact sheet. Ave Maria School of Law. Retrieved on 2007-05-17.
  2. ^ Ave Maria Board of Governors. Ave Maria School of Law. Retrieved on 2007-05-17.
  3. ^ "Tier 4 Brief", U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Graduate Schools 2008. 
  4. ^ "Ave Maria Law School May Face Threat to Accreditation" Sept. 11, 2007
  • "Pizza King Proposes World's Largest Crucifix," Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News, January 30, 2002. available as archive; copy available as a forum post here
  • "Ave Maria founder Tom Monaghan is a man of faith, plans and action," Marci Elliott, Naples Daily News, April 13, 2003. Archived at Catholic Education Resource Center, accessed October 9, 2006
  • "$220-Million to Build College Pledged by Pizza Entrepreneur," Meg Sommerfeld, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, November 20, 2002. Accessed October 9, 2006
  • "Change In Bylaws... Ave Maria Law School Alums Upset By Rice Removal," Paul Likoudis, The Wanderer Newspaper, October 13, 2005, accessed October 9, 2006

[edit] External links

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