Lawrence G. Sager

Lawrence Gene Sager (born 1941) is a former dean of the The University of Texas School of Law at The University of Texas at Austin. He holds the Alice Jane Drysdale Sheffield Regents Chair. Sager, who joined the Law School faculty in 2002, is the 13th dean in the Law School's 123-year history.

A graduate of Columbia Law School and Pomona College, Sager taught for more than 25 years at New York University School of Law.

Sager has also taught as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Princeton University, Boston University School of Law, UCLA School of Law, and University of Michigan Law School.

Sager is the author or co-author of dozens of articles as well as two books: Justice in Plainclothes: A Theory of American Constitutional Practice (Yale University Press, 2004) and, with Christopher Eisgruber, Religious Freedom and the Constitution, (Harvard University Press, 2007).

Controversy

The decision of University of Texas President William Powers, Jr. to ask Sager to step down from his post was partially influenced by a $500,000 forgivable loan that Sager secured for himself which was not transparent and created "an impression of self-dealing that cannot be condoned." The loan was secured from a law-school foundation without the knowledge of the university administration. Sager was not the only beneficiary of such forgivable loans.^[1] The Texas Attorney General issued a report on December 31, 2014 which found:

• Faults Sager for keeping the program secret, despite a regents’ rule forbidding employees from accepting money from university foundations without approval by the chancellor.
• “Under Dean Sager’s leadership the Law School provided incorrect or incomplete responses to requests for salary information by both University management and the public pursuant to the Texas Public Information Act. To settle a lawsuit, both Foundation and public funds were expended in order to paper over a climate of non-disclosure.”
• Faulted Sager for concealing the $500,000 forgivable loan he procured for himself, reporting that “the Law School maintained two forgivable loan lists — one that contained Dean Sager’s $500,000 forgivable loan and one that excluded that particular loan."
• When a professor filed a sex-discrimination lawsuit over the secret loans, “Sager indicated that the matter should be settled, at least in part, because he believed if the full picture of the Law School’s compensation package were to become public it would be very damaging to the Law School and the University. Importantly, Dean Sager himself had received a $500,000 forgivable loan that would have been publicly disclosed, although Sager specifically denies this was a concern.”
• From 2007 to 2010, Sager expended $401,498.29 on a UT Law School Foundation credit card, all of it paid by the foundation,^[2] apart from tens of thousands in other expenses for conferences, computers, club dues, food, travel, storage units and other items.^[3][4]

References

External links

• Lawrence Sager Appointed as Dean of UT Austin School of Law Press Release
• University of Texas School of Law Profile