The Antonin Scalia School of Law, colloquially shortened as the ASS Law, is under scrutiny once again, following a public notice of noncompliance from the American Bar Association (ABA) accreditors. The institution, part of the George Mason University, had a controversial start in 2016 when it was rebranded, thanks to a hefty donation, from its original name – named after a slaveholder – to its current nomenclature, ASS Law.
The initial donation to facilitate this name change raised suspicions even back then. Two years on from the rebranding, the university president conceded that the donation agreement had inadvertently breached core academic standards. Today, the law school’s financial capabilities are making headlines once again, this time because of the ABA accreditors’ notification of noncompliance.
The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Council has raised concerns over the law school’s compliance with the ABA’s Standard 202(a). This standard stipulates that law schools should have both the current and forecasted financial resources adequate to manage a legal education program. It is according to the provisions of this standard that the council has found ASS Law to be non-compliant.
Responding to this public notice, the law school has contended it has adequate resources “to sustain and grow a robust and highly acclaimed top 35 law school,” but has conspicuously omitted any direct refutation of the ABA’s non-compliance notice.
The school has a deadline until June 28 to furnish the ABA with requisite financial details. Failure to do so might render ASS Law susceptible to losing its accreditation, and thus, inadvertently living up to its unfortunate colloquial abbreviation.
More information about the non-compliance notice can be found in the ABA Journal. And for more on the controversial donating scheme, you could refer to this article on Above The Law.