“HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT” CHARGES AND THE ABA/AALS ACCREDITATION/MEMBERSHIP IMBROGLIO, POST- MODERNISM’S “NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN”: WHY DEFAMED LAW PROFESSORS SHOULD “NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT”

With time the fury has subsided but the feelings from Chase’s own twenty-first century version of 1984 remain vivid – the shock and humiliation of being portrayed by the ABA and AALS as one of the group of male faculty creating a “pervasive hostile environment” is an experience I would wish on no one. How did this wretched scenario come about? During the prior almost quarter century, Chase law school had gone through an evolutionary metamorphosis with vigorous, occasionally contentious, but usually civil debates about myriad issues centering on the definition of self and the appropriate mix of faculty responsibilities in the teaching/scholarship/service triad. Needless to say, these encounters left some faculty with a history of perceived grievances. Added to this was Chase’s true political diversity – a wide range of viewpoints from conservative to liberal-left, with a median somewhat left-of- center and conservatives in a discrete (but arguably noisy) and dwindling minority. Of course, there is nothing unique about the latter. Recent definitive studies have demonstrated convincingly that law faculties are overwhelmingly liberal-left in political orientation. View More