Author Archive for david-zaring
Making Administrative Law Au Courant
posted by David Zaring
Okay, now that the first post is out of the way, a little bit about myself. I write about administrative law, often about alternatives to traditional Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking, whether done by agencies themselves or by other lawmaking institutions, like district courts. And I’m becoming a veteran guest blogger, a – dare I dream? – poor man’s Paul Lynde of the legal blogosphere.
Some administrative law teachers have been accused of being secret aficionados of constitutional law, which they proceed to teach – somewhat dryly, I imagine – to their adlaw students. Instead of learning the regulatory process alone, these students also get lengthy instruction on, say, constitutional canons of interpretation and the separation of powers, all in the somewhat weak light of EPA rulemakings and ICC adjudications.
I’m not a secret conlaw guy, although the subjects above have reared their heads in my adlaw class. But I am closely watching the growth of another sort of administrative law scholarship that might have its heart – or part of its brain, anyway – in another legal discipline. Two NYU professors have founded a Global Administrative Law Project, international relations scholars remain abuzz about the development of transgovernmental relations, and the growing importance of global networks of regulators have been the subject of a series of panels at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting.
Have we entered the era of International Administrative Law?
March 7, 2006 at 12:31 am
Posted in: International & Comparative Law
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Why Hasn’t Efficient Breach Killed Tenure?
posted by David Zaring
Hi, everyone. Posts on my own scholarship to come, but why not begin with some questions about the institution of scholarship more generally?
Perhaps inspired by the latest shenanigans by the purportedly wild eyed radicals on the Harvard arts and sciences faculty, there’s been some gnashing of teeth about the tenure system. Tenure sure is a unique term in an employment contract. There’s no similar job security for artists, novelists, or journalists. Do academics really deserve better? Do they deserve stronger protections against termination than, say, civil servants (as an administrative law guy, when someone says “job,” I think “federal pay grade”)?
I wonder. But I also wonder why, if tenure begets mediocrity, deans don’t simply fire the tenured professors they don’t like, and present them with big breach of contract damages checks after doing so. Not every institution could afford to do so, of course, but some assuredly could – I’m looking at you, Harvard. And, while we’re engaging in a bloody-minded thought experiment, I also doubt that the regulatory protections against dismissal that tenured professors enjoy – deaccreditation or probation by a university licensing outfit, for example – are really the kind of sanctions that rich, established schools have to worry about, even if they decided to clean house in an unprecedented way. Who would disaccredit the Ivy League?
So the way I see it, the death of tenure is something that schools could make happen – they just haven’t chosen to do so. Maybe it’s an implied endorsement of the tenure system, or maybe it’s a sign of path dependence. As someone who sure would like to get tenure, I hope this unexercised power suggests that the system is a benign one. But I’d welcome explanations of tenure’s survival in light of what seems to me to be a rather delicate position.
March 6, 2006 at 12:49 am
Posted in: Law School
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