[Alumni-chat] D.C. law schools

[Stephen L. Wasby]

Sister Sara is regularly very thorough, but I offer the following commentary, including a "gentle corrective" on some facts.

Sistersara wrote:
As I understand  it, what was Antioch Law 
School was acquired by the new DC University, which  probably means it gets 
some public funding through Congress.

    = The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) started as Federal City College (the efforts of the late Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon, who had a great interest in higher education, even though we tend to associate him only with his opposition to the Vietnam War). It did acquire the law school, which is the David A. Clarke School of Law (Clarke was a long-time member of the City Council when D.C. finally got home rule).   

And Sistersara also said:
  And these  days there are also huge 
state supported Public law schools at U of Maryland and  at George Mason in N. 
Virginia. 
    = The University of Maryland's Law School is not in the D.C. area -- certainly those people who live in Baltimore would be sorely displeased to learn that they were "in the D.C. area."  The College Park (main) campus of University of Maryland has not had a law school.  
    George Mason University is a "relatively new beast," and was not in the picture at the time relevant to this discussion -- that is, when Antioch's law school existed.

 In otherwords, the area is pretty flush  with Law Schools.  

    = However, none of them served the population, nor had the curriculum, that Antioch's law school did. And "that makes all the difference."

There had been a churning of leadership, Dixon to Birnbaum to  
Guskin, with a few acting Presidents inbetween.

    = To go from Dixon's long tenure to Birnbaum's long tenure to Guskin's is not "churning."  If there is an "acting" between them, it would not be unusual when someone
leaves a college presidency and a new person is appointed.
If you want to see "churning," it far better describes the
more recent (post-Guskin) period, or, still better, the period after Bob Devine's presidency. Stability there has not been.

    Steve Wasby '59