The George Mason School of Law will be renamed in honor of the late U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year.
The university announced Thursday that it has received $30 million in combined gifts to the George Mason Foundation to support the law school, the largest gift in the university’s history. The donations make possible three new scholarship programs. Twenty million dollars came from an anonymous donor, and $10 million came from the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to colleges in the United States. The family is well known for its support of conservative political groups, sometimes stirring controversy.
The Board of Visitors approved the renaming of the school to the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. “This is a milestone moment for the university,” Ángel Cabrera, the university’s president, said in a statement. “These gifts will create opportunities to attract and retain the best and brightest students, deliver on our mission of inclusive excellence, and continue our goal to make Mason one of the preeminent law schools in the country.”
Who says you can’t buy yourself a law school? Is anyone else offended? I certainly don’t want to clone Justice Scalia and make a whole bunch more little Scalias. It appears that George Mason sold out to the highest bidder.
This “gift” seems to have a big caveat attached.
I think that a bunch more little Scalias would be just fine. “Nine” sounds like a good number.
Yea, if you lived in the 19th century….
Gould School of Law, University of Southern California. Naming followed large gifts.
Medical schools would be another….
James E.Rogers School of Law, University of Arizona. Named for the prominent graduate who gave the school $135 million.
Ohio State University. The law school got a $30 million gift in 2001 from a rich alumnus. Now the Moritz College of Law.
Looks to me like you can get your name on a law school if you have enough moolah and are willing to fork it over.
So what’s wrong with naming the school after a conservative jurist? Does the name set the tone for the instruction?
Ironic…George Mason authored the 2nd Amendment, and the school restricts 2A rights of the students, and those visiting.
I am not sure that constitutes restricting your rights. You also can’t get up in the middle of class and yell F-U at your professors. Isn’t that restricting 1st amendment rights?
I don’t like Scalia. I also don’t like Thomas or Alitia just to set the record straight. I suppose nothing is wrong with it. I just consider it distasteful.
I think this constitutes restricting my rights:
“Possession or carrying of any weapon by any person, except a police officer, is prohibited on university property in academic buildings, administrative office buildings, student residence buildings, dining facilities, or while attending sporting, entertainment or educational events. Entry upon the aforementioned university property in violation of this prohibition is expressly forbidden.”
Standing up in class and shouting “F-U” to a professor is prohibited as the act undermines the order of the class-room. Thinking “F that professor” doesn’t. Me carrying a concealed firearm or “any weapon” on my person, while on campus property doesn’t undermine the peace one bit. It is only if I were to use it in an unlawful manner that the peace is potentially breached”.
@MoonHowler
“I don’t like Scalia. I also don’t like Thomas or Alitia just to set the record straight. I suppose nothing is wrong with it. I just consider it distasteful.”
Ok, so there it is. Because you don’t like their strict constructionist views, (i.e. that the Constitution means what it says, and laws mean what they say), anything honoring them, especially in your backyard is “distasteful”. You find this offensive, even though this doesn’t infringe upon the rights of anyone, or impact individual liberty one bit.
So I am not longer entitled to an opinion? Yes, naming the George Mason law school after Scalia is distasteful to me.
I rather like it being called the George Mason Law School. It was named for GM and I don’t like that nomenclature being stripped. I think you will find I feel pretty much that way about any names being stripped. I am fairly consistent about “renaming” things to suit the political stripes du jour.
I would have better feelings about a new law school being named for him.
How would you feel if an anonymous corporation or individual donated 20 million for a law school there and wanted to name it Justice Harry Blackmun? I am guessing you wouldn’t like it. Actually, I wouldn’t like it either. He wasn’t a Virginian from this area.
I don’t like buying “schools.”
I am not a strict constructionist. I believe that the Constitution is a living document that has to grow with the times. Since anyone in power was a white man, when the document was written and ratified, that leaves out more than half the population from a founding father’s point of view. I want a few mothers in there.
I love how the article calls the Kochs…”conservative.” They are pro-drug legalization and pro-choice. They are libertarian.
Yet they cozy up to conservative candidates.
They are mercenaries.
That’s Alito, pilgrim. If yer gonna spit on a fellah, at least spell his name right.
I am guessing you don’t ever talk on blogs using a smart phone?
Always go for the minutia rather than the substance. Let’s pretend I spelled Alito’s name correctly (not that it matters) Then what do you have to say about first amendment rights? Going for the bright shiny object (a texto- typo) doesn’t really address the first amendment issues we were discussing.
Absolutely not. I don’t even have a smart phone. You’ve gotta take a health break once in awhile from these electronic slave masters.
I guess you don’t understand that smart phones (and some computers) do auto-correct and sometimes it isn’t as you would correct?
Do people think you are a luddite?
I took a wonderful break yesterday. I went up to one of my favorite spots and had a great time with family and friends, came home exhausted. I used my smart phone for the directions (a new route) and I used it for pictures of the setting sun in the campfire.
I didn’t feel I was being enslaved at all. All good moon-howlers should go to Wolf Gap.
Smart people make their smart phones their tools, not the other way around.
Admit it. People are trapped in cages of their own making. They cannot leave those machines behind without having anxiety traumas. If the battery runs out in public, they panic until they can find someplace to plug it in. They drive with the things in hand and risk lives. They walk with their eyes fastened on the gadget and risk being run over in the street. They are slaves to a machine. It is the users who are the tools — tools of the makers who entice constantly with new gadgets because the slaves themselves cannot handle surviving without the latest fad in slave masters. And all those slaves will soon have their necks fused into the same forward lean because they cannot let go of their addiction. When the power goes out in a real crisis, they are completely lost, no longer having the ability to find other things to be productive or to entertain themselves. And, in the bloom of youth, they often present a pathetic picture — a young man and a young women sitting together on a front stoop. They don’t look at each other. They don’t talk to each other. They have lost the ability to communicate face to face. All they do is stare at the slave master in their hand.
Luddite, balderdash. Free man.
It might be that you just don’t know how to use one and too stubborn to ask the younger generation for help?
Sorry, but I fail to see how naming a law school leads into a talkathon on the First Amendment. I like the First Amendment, I am glad the Founding Fathers put it into the Bill of Rights. I disagree completely with the contemporary PC nuts who try to bully others into abridging their own First Amendment rights. I spent a lifetime defending those rights. Nothing more to say about it.
Now, back to the original topic. Precisely why do you hate Thomas, Alito, and the late Scalia so much to the point of slamming the placement of the dead man’s name on a law school, even while the late George Mason gets to keep title to the entire university complex?
They are changing the name already. Nobody like the Antonin Scalia School of Law – ASSLaw. Seems like the VA General Assembly is not too happy with the name change either.