Academia, Bizarre, Justice, Lawyering

Gonzales Hired To Teach At Unaccredited Belmont Law School in Tennessee

While former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been able to escape investigation and prosecution for his role in the torture program, no law firms or ranking law schools wanted to touch him as he sought gainful employment. Gonzales has been struggling to find someone who wants to be represented or taught by an individual ridiculed for politicizing the Justice Department and bringing in hacks who were accused of a variety of criminal and ethical violations. Well, he finally found one school. Belmont University has created an unaccredited law school in Tennessee. Its new Doyle Rogers Distinguished Chair of Law is no one else than Alberto Gonzales.

Presumably, the “Distinguished” refers to the chair rather than the holder.

Belmont College of Law Founding Dean Jeff Kinsler insisted that Gonzales has what it takes to be “an outstanding professor.” So long as he does not waterboard the students.

What is truly scary is is Gonzales’ pledge to help “develop tomorrow’s leaders in the bar, the Nashville community and beyond.” The idea of Gonzales shaping lawyers is enough to force one into a fetal position.

Nevertheless, Doyle Rogers’ wife, Barbara Massey Rogers is ecstatic: “I thought it fitting and most appropriate to recognize a man of his stature and accomplishments in the legal profession at the opening of the new law school at Belmont University, a university very close to my heart.” “Of his stature and accomplishments”? He is on the top of the list in various countries as an alleged war criminal and was the target of the Spanish war crimes investigation until the Obama Administration coerced the Spaniards to block the prosecution. He is viewed by conservatives and liberal lawyers alike of destroying the professionalism and morale of the Justice Department by hiring exceptionally low quality lawyers who were selected for their blind loyalty to the President.

Here is the school’s press release.

I know little about Belmont University or its law school. However, it is a disgraceful start of any institution committed to teaching the rule of law by hiring a man viewed as its very antithesis. Here is a more relevant quote for the next press release from Justice Louis Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).:

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

Source: Tennessean

56 thoughts on “Gonzales Hired To Teach At Unaccredited Belmont Law School in Tennessee”

  1. I wonder how Harold Koh will be welcomed back to the academic world after he faithfully served the President at the expense of the law.

  2. Arthur Randolph Erb – thanks for those reminders, it’s been going on for a long, long time, they just don’t have (or can’t?) hide it anymore.

  4. I can see why they want to have that section…A.I. Seems like someone has to have some form of intelligence…

  6. i had to look up where belmont collage is. according to the notable alumni section they must have a school for american idol contestants.

  8. Rogers (Lawyer in real estate, investment, etc.) and his wife are well known Palm Beach Florida activists and philanthropists. Barbara Massey’s father is a famous Tennessee philanthropist. Doyle was appointed to the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission for the Southern District of Florida in 2001. Jeb Bush was elected Governor in 1998.

    This is part of the ongoing, unstated quid pro quo in politics. The Bush family and their friends and like-minded folks to take care of the disgraced AG, IMO. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Somebody in the Massey or Rogers family, or their very good friends and associates, bought an endowment at some time and now it’s a vehicle for paying off an old political debt.

    “Doyle and Barbara Massey Rogers”

    “A graduate of the University of Florida and its law school, Doyle Rogers is a shareholder in the law firm of Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay. Rogers and his wife, Barbara Massey, daughter of Tennessee philanthropist Jack Massey, are active in many civic and charitable projects, including The Society of the Four Arts, the Palm Beach Membership of Hospice Foundation of Palm Beach County Inc., the Palm Beach Civic Association, the Town of Palm Beach United Way and the Community Foundation. Doyle Rogers also is president of the University of Florida Foundation and the school’s national alumni group and a former member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission for the Southern District of Florida.”

    http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/faces-of-history-committee-honors-residents-as-centennial-1103150.html?page=5

  9. Or the relative need to dispense with the Constitution when I say it does not matter…..

  11. Dredd,

    It will most likely be…The Constitution and Selective Interpretation….

  13. Tom,
    sometimes people will sign up at an unaccredited school in hopes that it will achieve its accreditation during their tenure there. I think Yoo would be a perfect fit for a class led by Gonzo.

  14. In order from least bad to most bad:
    3. “Prof” Gonzalez actually torturing (water boarding) students.
    2. “Prof” Gonzales teaching students HOW to subvert the law and the constitution.
    1. (Most bad) “Prof.” Gonzalez teaching students that subverting the law and the constitution either out of loyalty to the individual who occupies the office of president or as a means to a short-term end, is a good thing to do.

    Perhaps he will bring in the Distinguished Professor Yoo to give some guest lectures?

    Finally: Who the hell knowingly signs up as a student at an unaccredited “school”? Do these geniuses even know what the implications are?

  15. I know little about Belmont University or its law school.

    Hosted a presidential debate in 2008. In 2010 they fired soccer coach Lisa Howe for being a lesbian. Gonzalez should fit right in.

  17. Pingback: Balloon Juice » Better Than a Jail Cell, I Guess

  18. OT … Chris Christie will not seek the presidency … eniobob will be so upset.

Comments are closed.