Antonin Scalia Law School Explained

Antonin Scalia Law School
Parent:George Mason University
Type:Public law school
Dean:Ken Randall
City:Arlington
State:Virginia
Country:United States
Students:546 (2023)
Ranking:28th (tie) (2024)[1]
Aba Profile:ABA Profile

The Antonin Scalia Law School is the law school of George Mason University, Virginia's largest public research university. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, roughly 4miles west of Washington, D.C., and 15miles east-northeast of George Mason University's main campus in Fairfax, Virginia. The law school is accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA). The school is known for its conservative ideological leaning in law and economics.[2] [3] [4]

History

George Mason University School of Law was authorized by the Virginia General Assembly in March 1979 and was founded on July 1, 1979. The school started as the International School of Law (ISL), which opened in 1972 in a classroom at the Federal Bar Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.[5] [6] In 1973, it moved into the home of former United States Chief Justice Edward Douglass White on Rhode Island Avenue, and in 1975 purchased the old Kann's Department Store in Arlington. Despite the growth, ISL could never obtain accreditation.

In 1976, ISL discussed a merger with George Mason University, which expressed interest in setting up a law school.[7] In 1978, the Virginia State Council of Education denied GMU's proposal to start a law school and encouraged a merger with ISL instead.[8] Later that year, the Council advised against allowing that merger, but the Virginia state legislature nonetheless approved the merger in early March 1979.[9] [10]

The law school became fully accredited by the American Bar Association in 1980.[11] Since then, its rankings amongst U.S. law schools has risen rapidly over the decades, being ranked 32nd in the United States in 2023, according to US News and World Report.[12]

In 2016, the school received $30 million to rename itself for Antonin Scalia, the late United States Supreme Court justice. The Charles Koch Foundation provided $10 million of the donation, with the remaining $20 million coming from an anonymous donor.[13] On March 31, 2016, Mason's Board of Visitors approved the renaming. School officials soon announced a new name: Antonin Scalia Law School,[14] a decision ratified by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia on May 17, 2016.[15] [16] In 2022, ProPublica reported that the anonymous donation made in 2016 was allegedly from Barre Seid, a businessman and philanthropist known for his donations to conservative causes.[17]

In 2019, the law school received a gift of $50 million, the largest ever received by the university, from the estate of Allison and Dorothy Rouse to "fund a chair or chairs that will promote the conservative principles of governance, statesmanship, high morals, civil and religious freedom and the study of the United States Constitution".

Admission and academics

For the Juris Doctor (J.D.) class entering in 2023, the law school received 2,303 applications and admitted 14%, of which 97 law students enrolled.[18] The total enrollment of all J.D. students in 2023 was 546 law students.[19] The median LSAT score among incoming J.D. students in 2023 was 168, and the median GPA was 3.89.[20] The passage rate for first-time takers of the Virginia bar exam in July 2023 was 90.7%, third among Virginia's eight law schools.[21]

The school also offers various Master of Laws (LLM) programs such as the Flex-LLM program which focuses on training and qualifying foreign law graduates to take bar exams in various U.S. states.[22] In addition, the school offers in-residence and online LLMs that specialize in subjects such as cybersecurity, global antitrust, and intellectual property. [23]

Rankings

In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked the George Mason University School of Law (Scalia) at 28th in the United States.[24]

Tuition

The total cost of attendance (tuition, fees, and living expenses) for the 2023–24 academic year at Mason Law is $62,196 for in-state students attending full-time; the total cost of attendance for non-resident students attending full-time is $78,044.[25]

Journals

Student-edited

Law library

The George Mason Law Library has a collection of electronic and print materials providing access to legal treatises, journals, and databases. Non-legal materials are available through the GMU University Libraries. It is a selective depository for U.S. Government documents, and it provides inter-library lending services with other academic libraries,[31] which enables students and faculty to borrow materials from major academic libraries.

The library occupies four levels of the law school building. It has 14 study rooms, 70 carrel seats, and 196 table seats wired with electrical and network connections, and a wireless network is available. The library also operates two computer labs with a variety of software.[32] The library employs 16 full-time staff members, including 6 librarians with degrees in law and library science and 3 technology specialists.[33] Access is limited to university faculty, students, staff, alumni and members of the bar.[34]

Academic climate

The law school is known for its conservative ideological leaning in law and economics.[2] [35] In addition, the school is known for tilting towards conservative principles, a perception that increased with the renaming in 2016 to honor U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a constitutional originalist.[36] [2] [3]

A 2023 New York Times report detailed the school's effort to cultivate ties to the Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices. The author described the school as "a Yale or Harvard of conservative legal scholarship and influence".

National Security Institute

The law school is also home to the National Security Institute (NSI), a think tank dedicated to research in national security, especially the relevance of legal issues pertaining to national security issues in the global context.[37]

Global Antitrust Institute

Antonin Scalia Law School also houses the Global Antitrust Institute (GAI), a think tank mainly concerned with antitrust and competition policy.[38] In 2021, Bloomberg reported on the "revolving door" between members of the GAI's faculty who later held positions at the Federal Trade Commission, a government agency tasked with regulating many of the companies that make significant donations to the GAI and the law school at large.[39] [40] [41]

Notable people

Alumni

Faculty

Notes and References

  1. Web site: George Mason University . April 10, 2024 .
  2. Bonica . Adam . Chilton . Adam . Rozema . Kyle . Sen . Maya . January 2018 . The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity . . en . 47 . 1 . 13–14 . 10.1086/698435 . 0047-2530 . 5 May 2023.
  3. Web site: Barakat . Matthew . 31 August 2019 . 'Conservative' String Attached to $50 Million Gift to George Mason University . 2020-06-16 . NBC4 Washington . en-US.
  4. News: Eder . Steve . Becker . Jo . How Scalia Law School Became a Key Friend of the Court . 18 March 2024 . The New York Times . 30 April 2023.
  5. News: Board Backs School Merger . The Evening Star . January 9, 1979.
  6. News: Antioch a new law approach . The Evening Star . November 6, 1972.
  7. Web site: Before We Became Part of the Mason Family: The Story of the International School of Law . June 27, 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180627203408/http://ahistoryofmason.gmu.edu/exhibits/show/prominence/contents/isl . June 27, 2018 . live .
  8. News: Las School Affiliation . The Evening Star . March 1, 1978.
  9. News: Beck . Jody . Smith . Rodney . Dalton Expected to Avoid Veto Battle With Legislature . The Evening Star . March 3, 1979.
  10. News: Evans . Ross . Council Denies George Mason a Law School . The Evening Star . November 8, 1978.
  11. Web site: ABA Accreditation by Year Approved .
  12. Web site: U.S. News and World Report - Scalia Law School Profile: 2023-2024 .
  13. News: Stripling. Jack. Gluckman. Nell. December 18, 2019. To Court a Secretive Donor, Law Deans at George Mason Blasted Climate Scientists and Their Own Accreditor. en-US. The Chronicle of Higher Education. live. December 27, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191228074407/https://www.chronicle.com/article/To-Court-a-Secretive-Donor/247744. December 28, 2019. 0009-5982.
  14. Web site: Chappell. Bill. April 6, 2016. Plan For Antonin Scalia School Of Law Is Tweaked Over Unfortunate Acronym. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180405034420/https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/06/473228688/plan-for-antonin-scalia-school-of-law-is-tweaked-over-unfortunate-acronym. April 5, 2018. April 4, 2018. www.npr.com.
  15. News: Svrluga. Susan. March 31, 2016. George Mason law school to be renamed the Antonin Scalia School of Law. en-US. The Washington Post. live. April 1, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160910105747/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/31/george-mason-law-school-to-be-renamed-the-antonin-scalia-school-of-law/. September 10, 2016. 0190-8286.
  16. Web site: Svrluga. Susan. May 17, 2016. It's official: George Mason's law school is named in honor of Antonin Scalia. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20160519120839/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/17/its-official-george-masons-law-school-is-named-in-honor-of-antonin-scalia/. May 19, 2016. May 23, 2016. www.washingtonpost.com.
  17. Web site: Kroll . Andy . Elliott . Justin . Perez . Andrew . How a Billionaire's "Attack Philanthropy" Secretly Funded Climate Denialism and Right-Wing Causes . 20 October 2022 . propublica.org . September 6, 2022 . ProPublica.
  18. Web site: George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School - 2023 Standard 509 . George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School - 2023 Standard 509.
  19. Web site: George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School - 2023 Standard 509 .
  20. Web site: Profile of the Fall 2023 Entering Class . September 25, 2023.
  21. Web site: VBBE - Exam - Statistics . 2024-03-21 . barexam.virginia.gov.
  22. Web site: Law . Above the . 2023-01-04 . How George Mason's Scalia Law School Prepares New Attorneys For A Changing Future - Above the Law . 2024-03-21 . en-US.
  23. Web site: George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School The Law School Admission Council . 2024-03-21 . www.lsac.org.
  24. Web site: 2024 Best Law Schools . 12 April 2024.
  25. Web site: Tuition and Costs Antonin Scalia Law School . 2024-03-22 . www.law.gmu.edu.
  26. Web site: George Mason Law Review - Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. George Mason Law Review. March 25, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110114155251/http://www.georgemasonlawreview.org/. January 14, 2011. live.
  27. Web site: Civil Rights Law Journal. November 5, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150827034616/http://civilrightslawjournal.com/. August 27, 2015. live.
  28. Web site: George Mason International Law Journal. 21 July 2022.
  29. Web site: National Security Law Journal – Insightful scholarship advancing the exciting, evolving field of national security law. www.nslj.org. April 15, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20130709154243/http://www.nslj.org/. July 9, 2013. live.
  30. Web site: The Journal of Law, Economics & Policy – The online home of the Journal of Law, Economics & Policy.. www.jlep.net. November 5, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20061205042843/http://jlep.net/. December 5, 2006. live.
  31. Web site: Borrowing from Other Libraries . www.law.gmu.edu. November 5, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151118035852/http://www.law.gmu.edu/library/services/ill. November 18, 2015. live.
  32. Web site: About the Library . www.law.gmu.edu. November 5, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20151112120315/http://www.law.gmu.edu/library/about. November 12, 2015. live.
  33. Web site: Staff Directory . www.law.gmu.edu. January 24, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130113031102/http://www.law.gmu.edu/library/staff. January 13, 2013. live.
  34. Web site: About the Library Antonin Scalia Law School. 2020-06-16. www.law.gmu.edu.
  35. Web site: Barakat . Matthew . 31 August 2019 . 'Conservative' String Attached to $50 Million Gift to George Mason University . 2020-06-16 . NBC4 Washington . en-US.
  36. Web site: Reporter . Staff . 2016-10-07 . Law school renamed in honour of Antonin Scalia . 2024-05-15 . Catholic Herald . en-GB.
  37. Web site: National Security Institute . 2022-11-25 . National Security Institute . en-US.
  38. Web site: Overview – Global Antitrust Institute . 2023-01-31 . gai.gmu.edu.
  39. News: 2021-03-12 . One Tech-Funded University Helped Shape FTC's Hands-Off Approach . en . Bloomberg.com . 2023-01-31.
  40. News: Wakabayashi . Daisuke . 2020-07-24 . Big Tech Funds a Think Tank Pushing for Fewer Rules. For Big Tech. . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-01-31 . 0362-4331.
  41. News: How Google worked behind the scenes to invite federal regulators to conferences . en-US . Washington Post . 2023-01-31 . 0190-8286.

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