Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/faculty_news_and_moves/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 10:54:33+00:00

Document:
The University of Minnesota Law School plans to fill one tenure-track junior (entry-level and/or lateral) faculty position, to begin in the 2019-20 academic year. Rank upon hire will depend on qualifications. This is a full-time, nine-month appointment.
Qualifications-Applicants should hold a J.D. or degree of equivalent rank and should demonstrate outstanding potential in scholarship and teaching. We are especially interested in the following academic subject areas: constitutional law, employment/labor law, administrative law, civil procedure, environmental law, health law, international law, intellectual property law, property law, and tort law; however, the Law School will consider outstanding candidates with interest or expertise in other subject matter areas.
People of color, women, individuals with disabilities, members of the LGBT community, and other candidates who will contribute to the cultural and intellectual diversity of the faculty are strongly encouraged to apply. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity employer.
To apply, please go to http://humanresources.umn.edu/jobs and reference job ID 326112.
Congratulations to two important worklaw scholars and two of my personal idols, Cyndi Nance (left, Arkansas) and Angela Onwuachi-Willig (right, moving to Boston Univ.)!
Cyndi will be receiving the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA this year, and Angela will be the new Dean at Boston University School of Law.
Congratulations to Terri Beiner, who has been named dean of University of Arkansas - Little Rock School of Law. UALR is fortunate to have her at the helm!
Courtesy of Prawfsblawg, the following schools are in the market this year for faculty in the labor and employment law area. Feel free to add any schools in the comments section.
Subject areas: Our primary areas of interest are employment law and corporate & securities law. We are also open to candidates in other areas, including critical theory, torts, professional responsibility, property law, and civil procedure.
Communication: You can email lawfacultyapp@richmond.edu.
Positions available: We have three open positions, and we are focused primarily on entry-level or junior lateral candidates.
Thomas Jefferson School of Law Prof. Susan Bisom-Rapp, who researches employment discrimination law, said while she disagreed with Mr. Damore’s views, she could envision potential legal arguments he could make to invoke the NLRA.
That Mr. Damore’s letter doesn’t appear to be drafted in concert with other Google employees doesn’t in itself mean the law cannot be invoked. Protections can be triggered by a single employee trying to rally colleagues around a wider workplace issue.
Mr. Damore could try to argue that he’s “protected in expressing himself in an effort to engage in dialogue with co-workers about Google’s diversity efforts,” said Prof. Bisom-Rapp.
However, “an employee gripe or complaint standing alone, without that call to fellow employees to gather together, is not enough,” said Julie Totten, an employment defense lawyer with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in Sacramento.
Labor law also forbids employers from firing a worker for alleging an unfair labor practice, making the timing of Mr. Damore’s formal complaint potentially relevant in a legal dispute, said Prof. Bisom-Rapp.
Legal experts said federal antidiscrimination law could offer Mr. Damore another possible, albeit narrow, legal avenue. His memo suggested Google is engaging in reverse discrimination, citing “special treatment for ’diversity’ candidates.” Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act bans employers from retaliating against workers for complaining about unlawful workplace discrimination.
“You would have to show what Google is doing is illegal. That would be difficult,” said Prof. Matt Bodie, an employment law scholar at Saint Louis University Law School and a former NLRB field attorney.
The NLRB generally doesn’t impose remedies beyond reinstatement of employment and back pay, Mr. Bodie said.
The full WSJ article is available at Jacob Gershman & Sara Randazzo, Fired Engineer Likely to Face Obstacles in Challenging Google, WSJ 8/9/17.
The National Academy of Arbitrators conferred upon Rafael Gely the David Petersen Award at its annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. The David Petersen Award recognizes and honors individuals who have given invaluable service to the Academy.
The Academy conferred the Petersen Award because of Professor Gely’s instrumental role in the startup and continual maintenance of arbitrationinfo.com, the neutral website which is a joint venture of the National Academy of Arbitrators and the University of Missouri School of Law. Through Professor Gely’s work as an editor of the site, he has written content on a regular basis, designed and updated the site, supervised student assistants, and crucially connected with journals both before and after articles are written. The Academy notes the creation of the website provided a source of information and education regarding arbitration for journalists, professionals, and the public. The Academy believes that the website has immeasurably improved the discourse and understanding of labor and employment arbitration in both United States and Canada.
TaxProf Blog and Leiter Law School Reports have been covering the complaint by Columbia Law professor, George Fletcher. Very briefly, he alleges that Columbia discriminated against him based on his age by refusing to allow him to teach a required LLM course (Columbia cited poor evaluations), which among other things, might mean that he falls below the required number of teaching hours for the year. Among the other factors that threaten his teaching load is his desire to maintain his tradition of working a full semester in Israel and the fact that the elective course he was assigned to teach is at risk of being cancelled for low enrollment.
I obviously don't know what's really going on here, but I've got to say that the former Academic Affairs Dean in me sees several red flags about his teaching that makes me less inclined to be sympathetic to his claim. That's not to mention the fact that part of the problem is that he expects to be able to leave for half the year, every year.
The goal of the Award is to acknowledge exceptional and longstanding contributions to labour law scholarship. Such recognition from the global community of labour law scholars, which the LLRN represents, is intended to be meaningful both for the Award recipients and for the community bestowing this honour. The members of the Award Nominations Committee this year were Takashi Araki, Hugh Collins, John Howe, Kerry Rittich, and Mia Ronnmar (those interested in the guidelines detailing the process can find them at the LLRN website).
The Awards will be presented at a ceremony during the upcoming LLRN3 conference in Toronto. In the meantime, warmest congratulations to Kathy and Kazuo for this well-deserved honour!
You can also see UCLA's announcement here.
The suit is brought by former faculty member Patrice Fulcher. Paul Caron has the details over at Tax Prof Blog, via National Jurist (paywalled). The Complaint alleges that Fulcher was steered toward a legal writing position rather than a doctrinal position and paid less than doctrinal colleagues, and that a year after getting tenure she was denied the salary raise that customarily accompanied tenure.
As Caron notes, this is the second time in four years JMLS-Atlanta has been sued for race discrimination. The former suit, by two former faculty members, was settled after the plaintiffs survived a motion dismiss.
When you have good news to share, but are reticent to toot your own horn, send that news my way. Likewise, please send my way news you come across about the accomplishments of our comrades.
I'm always happy to brag on the accomplishments of everyone in our LEL community.
Congratulations to friend of the blog, Wendy Greene (Samford) whose article, Title VII: What’s Hair (and Other Race-Based Characteristics) Got to Do With It? was cited today by the Eleventh Circuit in EEOC v.Catastrophe Management Solutions. Wendy's article was cited for its discussion of the socially constructed nature of race.
In this case, CMS, an insurance processing company in Mobile, Alabama, rescinded an African American woman’s job offer to handle phone calls related to customer service support because she refused to cut off her locked hairstyle. Essentially, the employer made "no locks" a condition of employment for the applicant, though she was deemed qualified, interviewed and was offered the job with the hairstyle. And, apparently CMS’ human resources manager considered her hair well-groomed at the time of hire, yet remarked that the applicant’s locks might eventually become “messy.” The HR manager told the applicant she would be unable to hire her if she did not cut off her hair; the applicant refused do so, returned her initial paperwork as requested, and left the premises. The Birmingham office of the EEOC filed a Title VII intentional race discrimination case against CMS. In doing so, the EEOC attempted to overturn over 30 years of legal precedent affirming the legality of natural hairstyle bans (except those involving afros). Largely drawing upon legal scholarship of U.S. employment discrimination and race and law scholars, one of the EEOC's primary arguments centered around the immutability doctrine; the EEOC advanced that a biological notion of race, which treats race as an “immutable” characteristic, should no longer be employed when interpreting Title VII’s prohibitions against race discrimination. Rather, the notion of race should be expanded to include both immutable and mutable characteristics. Thus, a grooming policy prohibiting natural hairstyles, like locks, braids, twists, etc., which are associated with African descendants—in law and society—constitutes unlawful race discrimination.
Ultimately, the 11th Circuit declined to abolish the immutability doctrine in EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions and held that CMS’ “no locks” mandate did not violate Title VII, as the EEOC would be unable to produce evidence that all individuals who adorn locks are Black or that only individuals who adorn locks are Black. Though the court did not rule in the EEOC’s favor, it did engage in a fairly lengthy dialogue about the meaning of race and competing arguments of notable race and law scholars. Aside from the exploration of race, this opinion may be of interest to proceduralists and those interested in the application of the Supreme Court’s decision in Young v. UPS, the (purported) demarcation between disparate treatment and disparate impact theories of liability, and statutory interpretation more generally.
The opinion relied very heavily on legal scholarship for its analysis. In addition to citing Wendy, the opinion cites Ian Haney Lopez, Camille Gear Rich, Sharona Hoffman, Barbara Flagg, Richard Ford, Annelise Riles, Kenji Yoshino, Juan Perea, and Rhonda Magee Andrews in its discussion of what race is. Ultimately the court relied on what it believed Congress thought race was in 1964--a set of immutable physical characteristics--and its prior precedent. But the court's analysis went a bit further, too, considering the legal scholarship. The opinion expressed some concern about including cultural or behavioral practices as part of the identity protected by Title VII because those practices might vary by individual and change over time. The court was very uncomfortable with the idea that courts would have to decide what was an "authentic" part of a racial group's culture and what was not. Despite the court's reluctance to agree with many of the scholars it cited, the fact that the opinion considers this work so carefully is heartening.
It is time once again for the preparation of a joint annual newsletter for the AALS Section on Employment Discrimination and the Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law, and we need your help as readers and section members. Please forward this message to any and all people you know who teach or write in the Employment Discrimination, Labor Law, and Employment Law fields.
First, if you have news of any faculty visits, lateral moves, entry-level hires, or promotions and please e-mail that news to Joseph Mastrosimone at Joseph.Mastrosimone@washburn.edu.
Second, please also e-mail Joseph Mastrosimone with any information about conference announcements and calls for papers, employment or fellowship opportunities, honors and awards, and reports on recent conferences or other events of interest to the two Sections’ members.
Fourth and finally, we want to solicit anyone who would be interested in writing a brief description of a recent important labor and employment case or any significant new labor or employment legislation. Your subject could be a recent Supreme Court decision (including Fisher v. University of Texas, Heffernan v. City of Paterson, Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, Green v. Brennan, etc.), a significant NLRB decision (including Columbia University, Miller & Anderson, Inc., Piedmont Gardens, etc.), a significant circuit court decision or emerging circuit split, a state supreme court decision, or an innovative and potentially influential new federal, state, or local law. The description should be fairly short — it need not be more than a couple of paragraphs, and should definitely be under 2 pages. If you're looking for an easy way to get your name out there or want a quick outlet for your ruminations about a case or new law, this could be a good opportunity. Please let us know what you are interested in writing about — if you would like to do this, please email Joey Fishkin at jfishkin@law.utexas.edu by October 15 to indicate your interest and say what you’d like to write about.
A belated but heartfelt congratulations to Scott Bauries (Kentucky), who last week was voted up for full professorship. Scott's colleagues at Kentucky are extraordinarily lucky to have him a member of their faculty, and I am equally lucky to have Scott as a friend.
Congratulations to Paul Harpur (U. Queensland - Beirne School of Law) who has just been promoted to Senior Lecturer. Paul focuses on disability rights, anti-discrimination laws, work health and safety laws, and corporate social responsibility. He has published widely in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States on employment, anti-discrimination, and human rights laws. He currently leads an International Labour Organization project assessing labour rights in the South Pacific.
Congratulations to Michael Duff, who has been appointed Associate Dean of Student Programs and External Relations at Wyoming College of Law.
Just a reminder to let us know of your good news so we can get the word out. I love celebrating the achievements of everyone in our LEL academic community!
First, if you have news of any faculty visits, lateral moves, entry-level hires, or promotions and tenure, please e-mail that news to Danielle Weatherby at dweath@uark.edu.
Second, please also e-mail Danielle Weatherby with any information about conference announcements and calls for papers, employment or fellowship opportunities, honors and awards, and reports on recent conferences or other events of interest to the two Sections’ members.
Third, we want to include a list of relevant employment or labor law-related publications published in 2015. Please hold your forthcoming 2016 publications for next year’s newsletter. These publications can be books, articles, and chapters. Please also send a list of your 2015 publications to Danielle Weatherby.
Fourth and finally, we want to solicit anyone who would be interested in writing a brief description of a recent important labor and employment case or any significant new labor or employment legislation. Your subject could be a recent Supreme Court decision (including Young v. UPS, Inc., EEOC v. Abercrombie and Fitch, or the granting of cert. in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association), a significant circuit court decision or emerging circuit split, a state supreme court decision, or an innovative and potentially influential new federal, state, or local law. The description should be fairly short (under 2 pages). If you're looking for an easy way to get your name out there or want a quick outlet for your ruminations about a case or new law, this could be a good opportunity, as the newsletter is widely circulated. Just let us know what you are interested in writing about. Please send your submissions to Naomi Schoenbaum at nschoenbaum@law.gwu.edu.
Please send all submissions by November 1, 2015.
The University of Alabama School of Law anticipates making at least two tenured or tenure-track appointments to its faculty, to begin in the 2016-2017 academic year. The Faculty Appointments Committee seeks applications from entry-level candidates with excellent academic records and demonstrated potential for exceptional teaching and scholarly achievement. We also welcome applications from lateral candidates who possess outstanding academic credentials, including demonstrated teaching ability and a record of distinguished scholarship. Although positions are not necessarily limited by subject matter, we are particularly interested in the following academic subject areas: business law, commercial law, employment law, family law, and labor law. Most candidates will have a J.D. degree from an accredited law school. Exceptional candidates who possess an advanced degree, such as a Ph.D., and who have scholarly interests related to the law involving interdisciplinary, jurisprudential, empirical, or social scientific work may be considered even without holding a law degree. The University of Alabama embraces and welcomes diversity in its faculty, student body, and staff; accordingly, the School of Law actively welcomes applications from persons who would add to the diversity of our academic community. Salary, benefits, and research support are nationally competitive. The School of Law will treat all nominations and applications as confidential, subject to requirements of state and federal law. Interested candidates should apply online at facultyjobs.ua.edu. The positions will remain open until filled. Please refer any questions about the hiring process to Professor Julie A. Hill, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee for the 2015-2016 academic year (email: facappts@law.ua.edu).

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