Baylor Law dean to step down, school out of ABA compliance for diversity

Brad Toben, the current longest-serving law school dean, will step down in July and return to the Baylor University School of Law faculty. This change was announced about a month before the American Bar Association posted a public notice of noncompliance for the lack of faculty diversity at the school.

The university said the two are not related.

“Dean Toben has had a profound impact on Baylor Law,” said Nancy Brickhouse, provost at Baylor University. “Baylor’s Law School is largely the product of the team Brad has created and cultivated for decades – and it is a very healthy law school.”

Toben took over as dean in 1991. During the past 30 years, only a handful of deans have served as long. The typical dean serves for about five years.

Toben has hired approximately 90% of the Baylor faculty and staff in the law school and oversaw the construction of the Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center, a building that sits across the river from the university’s football stadium. He also raised the school’s endowment from less than $1 million to more than $180 million.

That has helped the law school keep tuition flat since 2018. It recently announced it will not raise tuition again this year. Students will continue to pay $1,471 per course hour per quarter, the same rate since 2018.

“For the past several years, we have been focused on raising endowment resources and other efforts to offer our students the opportunity to pursue a legal education without worrying about rising tuition costs,” Toben said. “At a time when inflation is impacting the cost of everything from food to vehicles, we’re pleased to keep tuition flat. We will continue to strive to make Baylor Law education accessible to all students, regardless of their financial circumstances.”

Patricia Wilson will take over as interim dean in July.

In the public notice posted in late February, the ABA stated that Baylor is noncompliant with Standard 206(b), which requires schools to be “Consistent with sound educational policy and the Standards, a law school shall demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion by having a faculty and staff that are diverse with respect to gender, race and ethnicity,” according to the ABA’s website.

The notice is related to the school’s part-time faculty, which is made up of 100 men, 46 women and 14 people of color, according to the data from the most recent Standard 509 Information report. Baylor was first notified of the problem in February 2022 and was asked to submit a report in September of that year. The public notice indicates that the school’s report did not satisfy the ABA.

“Baylor Law is focused on increasing diversity in all aspects of our program, including our adjunct faculty,” Toben wrote to the ABA Journal. “We have an obligation to our students to create an educational environment that reflects the rich diversity of our state and nation…”

The law school has been asked by the ABA to create a plan to achieve compliance with the standard. Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University received a similar notice in December. However, the ABA recently posted a public notice that stated the school demonstrated compliance with the standard in its report back to the council.