It was a Bad Week for …
Returning gracefully when tax law professor William Brown sued his former employer, University of Pittsburgh, for age discrimination after it hired a younger professor instead. Brown, 73, had been a tenured law professor at Pitt for 30 years until he left to teach at the Duquesne University business school. He recently returned to Pitt to teach tax law and expressed a strong desire to return as a tenured professor. His complaint states that Pitt administrators “”considered the fact that the median age of the Law School faculty had increased, and determined that this was a negative factor that needed to be addressed.”
It was a good week for …
Standing up to blood money, after professor Lynn Stout raised concerns about her school, UCLA, accepting $10 million from Lowell Milken to start a business law institute in his name. Milken, brother of junk bond king Michael Milken, was barred from working in the securities industry due to involvement with his brother’s firm. But he was never convicted of any wrongdoing, thanks in part to his brother’s plea bargain. Stout is an expert on corporate and securities law and said the gift posed “serious ethical problems and reputational risks for UCLA.” “I don’t think someone who has been banned from the security industry and barred from the New York Stock Exchange is an appropriate model for UCLA alumni and students,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
