BERKELEY LAW ‘PRIVATIZATION’ IS AT ISSUE AS STATE MONEY DWINDLES, DEAN REACHES OUT FOR FUNDS

NY Sun ^ | Jan 12, 2005 | By GARY SHAPIRO Staff Reporter of the Sun

[Jim Robinson]

Has Berkeley — a known bastion of liberalism — become enamored of privatization? A recent Los Angeles Times article about the University of California, Berkeley Law School might have you believe so.

Last Monday it stated that the school’s dean, Christopher Edley Jr., wanted to privatize the school, in part.

The story said Mr. Edley’s plan was “unusual for a liberal law professor who served in the Carter and Clinton administrations.”

But Mr. Edley told The New York Sun that the Times’s headline — “UC Law School Needs to Privatize, Dean Says” — was “terribly misleading.”

“I need private resources to support our public mission, and we cannot afford further cuts in our public funding,” Mr. Edley said. A better headline, he said, might have been “Public mission requires private resources.”

The law school, one of the leading in the nation, has declined in the U.S. News & World Report rankings: In 2002, it was tied for 7th; in 2003, it was tied for 10th; last year Berkeley dropped to 13th. However, its reputation has held steady at 7th or 8th, despite a steep drop in state funding.

State money has declined — making up just 30% of the school’s budget today, compared to 60% in 1994.

“I’m not talking about being liberated from the Legislature or Board of Regents,” Mr. Edley said. “One must distinguish mission, financing, and governance…. The mission is inviolate. The question is how to finance it, if the state won’t pay full freight.”

The word “privatize” in the L.A. Times headline drew disparate reactions on the Web, from people across the political spectrum...

[Jim Robinson]

Brian Grayson, 33, a law student at the University of New Mexico who runs what he calls “an unabashed conservative blog” called “Tomfoolery of the Highest Order,” wrote that he found the irony “delicious” that Berkeley appears to be admitting that “the problem with depending on government is that you can’t depend on them.”

[krakath]

I would agree with that blogger as well. Delicious.

[Carry_Okie]

So Berkeley's law school becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trial Lawyers Association? Who else???

Regardless of who is "buying," it looks like they might be getting the school awfully cheap.