NCCU law school panel meets about center proposal
A faculty committee at the North Carolina Central University School of Law is expected to recommend within the next few weeks whether the school should establish a constitutional law center partially funded by a Republican activist.
The Herald-Sun of Durham reported (http://bit.ly/oWepmY) that the faculty’s curriculum committee discussed the offer last week. Law school Dean Raymond Pierce says many alumni have expressed concern about the plan because $600,000 of start-up money would come from a family foundation run by Raleigh businessman Art Pope, a Republican activist.
“We’ve received a good amount of concern expressed by our alumni about the proposal, because of the connection to Art Pope,” Pierce said. “It has definitely generated some considerable concern.”
The offer to create a center of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law at NCCU was brought to the school last month by former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, an alumnus. The proposal says that the center would collaborate with the UNC School of Government to develop scholarly study of the Constitution and that Orr, the head of the institute, would serve as the center’s first director.
The foundation money would pay for three years for the director’s salary as well as that of a staff position and initial programming at the center.
The proposal to create the center is going through the law school’s normal processes, said Pierce, which includes evaluation by the faculty’s curriculum committee. That committee first met to discuss the offer last week.
Alumni concern has delayed the committee’s work, Pierce said. “We’ve had quite a bit of responses, a significant number, and that has caused the committee to be a bit more deliberate in examining the proposal,” he said.
The dean said he expects that the committee will make its recommendation to the full faculty near the beginning of October.
“At that point, we will have to look at the whole thing on balance,” he said. “We’ll have to decide whether to take the good with the bad and weigh the concerns. Right now I would just like to hear what faculty curriculum committee has to say.”
If the full faculty approves the proposal, it still would have to be endorsed by NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, the school’s Board of Trustees and the UNC system’s Board of Governors.
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