Part 4 (2/2)

'And your book is still number one on the New York Times, I see. I would think you could afford a suit with all those royalties.'

Professor Goldman had lived the last thirty-five years of his life in this law school, seldom venturing far from campus, preferring instead to live like a nun cloistered inside a convent. Like many of his contemporaries, he had entered law school to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War and had stayed on to enjoy the benefits of lifetime tenure. He was short and portly and sported fluffy white hair and a trimmed white beard; he wore a brown plaid three-piece suit and a brown bowtie; there was still one law professor in America wearing bowties. Book ignored him (and his bowtie) and found a seat in the back corner next to his best friend among the faculty, which is to say, his only friend among the faculty.

'Henry.'

'Book.'

Henry Lawson (UT, 1997, Oil and Gas Law) was an a.s.sociate professor of law. His face held the expression of a middle-aged man with no job security. Which was what he was. He occupied a rung on the academic career ladder one below that of a tenured professor of law. And his tenure was on the agenda that day.

His chances were not good. First, forty-three of the seventy-two professors in the room held law degrees from Harvard and Yale while Henry held a law degree from this very law school. Only four other professors on the full-time faculty were UT law graduates; no other Texas law school, or Southern law school for that matter, was represented on the faculty. When Harvard-and Yale-educated professors did the hiring, they hired Harvard and Yale graduates, not Texas and Alabama graduates. They demanded diversity in all things academic, except professors' law schools and political ideology.

Second, Henry had spent five years working in the legal department of an international oil company. That experience served him well as a professor teaching oil and gas law, but as far as the Harvard and Yale professors were concerned, he might as well have been in-house counsel to the Grand Order of the Ku Klux Klan. Which at one time would not have disqualified one from teaching at UT. William Stewart Simkins, a Klansman turned law professor, taught at the UT law school from 1899 to 1929; the university even named a dormitory in his honor in 1954, coincidentally the same year the Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education overturning Plessy and declaring that 'separate but equal' violated the Const.i.tution. The Board of Regents had renamed the dorm just the past year.

And third, the slim chance Henry did have would become no chance at all if the HarvardYale cartel discovered that he had voted for George W. Bush. Twice. Henry's expression revealed his despair.

'I'm forty-one, Book,' he said in a low voice. 'There's no other law school out there for me. With this economy and law jobs plummeting, schools are freezing new hires. I've been denied tenure twice. Three strikes, and I'm out.'

He put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. After a long moment, he turned to Book.

'Ann's pregnant again.'

Book chucked him on the shoulder.

'Congratulations.'

Henry did not seem thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father for the third time. So Book did the only thing he knew to perk up his friend's spirits: he popped the top on the plastic container and offered Henry a quesadilla.

'Chicken.'

'With Myrna's guacamole?'

'Of course.'

They ate the quesadillas while the other professors renewed their debate in earnest.

'What are they fighting about today?' Book asked.

'What else? Money and tenure. And the vacant a.s.sistant deans.h.i.+p.'

The a.s.sistant dean had been fired when it came to light that the UT Law School Foundation, a nonprofit run by alumni, had handed out-on the dean's sole recommendation-$4.65 million in 'forgivable loans' to twenty-two professors in amounts ranging from $75,000 to $500,000. Purportedly to attract and retain key faculty by allowing them to purchase homes in the high-dollar Austin residential market, the loans were forgiven if the professor remained on the faculty for a negotiated term of three to ten years. The a.s.sistant dean himself had received a $500,000 loan, apparently to ensure his loyalty to UT. The secret faculty compensation numbers had become public when several professors made an open records request; the information ignited a firestorm among the faculty, not because the other professors thought the loans too 'Wall Street' during this Great Recession when the law school was increasing tuition on its middle-cla.s.s students by double digits, but because they wanted in on the action. The controversy reached the university president, and worse, the Austin newspaper and the legal blogosphere, which proved an embarra.s.sment to the administration; the president then fired the a.s.sistant dean. He couldn't fire the dean who doled out the money because the Longhorn football coach and the law school dean-a legendary law professor at UT who had taught most of the senior partners at the major Texas law firms and who was now a legendary acc.u.mulator of donations and endowments from those law firms-ran the only two profit centers on the UT campus. But someone had to be fired.

'I want more money!'

Professor Sheila Manfried (Yale, 1990, Feminist Legal Theory and Gender Crimes) was addressing the faculty. She waved a thick doc.u.ment in the air.

'I have the faculty compensation numbers. I knew I was getting screwed, and this proves it. I can't believe how many male professors are making more money than me. I want a salary increase, and I want one of those forgivable loans. I've been on this faculty for eighteen years. I've been tenured for twelve. I publish more articles than the rest of you combined. My law review articles have been published in the Yale Law Review, the Harvard Law Review, the Michigan Law Review ...'

She pointed at male professors (who referred to her as 'Professor Mankiller' behind her back) in succession as if identifying guilty defendants in court.

'... But you're making more than me? And you? And you? You guys haven't published anything in years.'

Professor Herbert Johnson (UT, 1974, Contracts), one of those guys, offered the male reb.u.t.tal.

'Well, Sheila, when I did publish something, it was useful, not your feminist c.r.a.p. What's your latest article? ”The Tort of Wrongful Seduction.” You want men to be liable for damages if they really didn't mean it when they said, ”I love you.” How stupid is that?'

Professor Manfried glared at him then jabbed a long finger in the air as if to stab him.

'That's it, Herb. I'm putting you on my witness list.'

Professor Manfried had sued the university for gender discrimination over her compensation. She made $275,000.

'Liberals fighting over money like Republicans,' Henry said.

'The desire for money transcends politics.'

'But tenure doesn't.' Henry shook his head. 'I was ROTC at A&M, served in the army for four years, graduated top of my cla.s.s at this law school, worked to pay off my student loans ... but I'm an outcast here because I worked for an oil company.'

'And voted Republican,' Book whispered.

'Shh! They don't know.'

Book could count the number of professors who might have voted Republican on his fingers and toes, and he didn't need to take his boots off. Of course, it was mere speculation; one did not speak publicly about such things inside an American law school, not if one wanted tenure or a salary hike. Law school faculties leaned hard to the left, which was to be expected at Harvard and Yale, but at Texas? That fact-that Ivy League-educated liberals who disdained all things Texan (except their University of Texas paychecks) and whose fondest dream was to be called home to Harvard and Yale were teaching the sons and daughters of conservative UT alumni-had always amused him. If only those conservatives knew that their beloved university had a faculty only slightly to the left of the ruling party in Havana.

'I propose a faculty resolution demanding that the new a.s.sistant dean be a woman,' Professor Manfried said. 'Better yet, a lesbian.'

'They're bringing in an outsider,' Professor Goldman said. 'A heteros.e.xual male.'

'How do you know?'

'He's married with two children.'

'That they hired a man?'

'I have my sources in Admin. I hear that Roscoe will finalize the deal before the semester is out.'

'Then I propose a resolution that Roscoe be fired and replaced with a lesbian.'

Roscoe Chambers was the law school dean. He was seventy-seven years old and a crusty old fart who ran the law school with an iron fist.

'He's untouchable, Sheila,' Professor Goldman said.

'He's a Republican dinosaur. It's embarra.s.sing to go to law school conferences and have professors from other schools laugh at us because we have a Republican dean.'

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