Clinical Legal Educators Condemn Rescission of Deanship and Attack on Academic Freedom January 23, 2026

Clinical Legal Educators Condemn Rescission of Deanship and Attack o Academic Freedom

January 23, 2026

[Download the statement here.]

Over the past year, a deeply troubling pattern of unchecked political interference by federal and state governmental actors in legal education has emerged. The unprecedented rescission of Professor Emily Suski’s contract of employment as Dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law is the latest evidence of the power that government actors are willing to use to silence academics for political purposes. The rescission came after members of the state legislature voiced concerns related to Professor Suski’s signature on an amicus brief in support of transgender student athletes filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to her deanship appointment, Professor Suski was the founder and faculty director of the Carolina Health Advocacy Medico-legal Partnership (CHAMPS), the Associate Dean of Strategic and Institutional Priorities, and the Associate Dean of Clinics and Externships at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law.

The rescission of Professor Suski’s deanship in the face of pressure from state legislators is an overreach of governmental power. This violation of Professor Suski’s First Amendment rights also undermines the basic principles of academic freedom—a pillar of every academic institution critical to protecting the integrity of intellectual discourse and the free exchange of ideas necessary in a democracy. For law school faculty, academic freedom includes the freedom to sign amicus briefs, particularly those that align with faculty members’ expertise and scholarship.

Courts rely on amicus briefs to provide them with the particularized legal expertise that law faculty are especially well-suited to provide. The Arkansas state government seeks to punish a future dean for lending their legal expertise in an area of controversy, a core function of legal scholars. The rescission of Professor Suski’s contract and capitulation to state government pressures should sound alarm bells for all faculty—doctrinal and clinical—as well as law school deans and hiring committees. Seeking to punish a lawyer for their zealous advocacy threatens the viability of our legal system, which is critical to the preservation of our democracy.

The attack on Professor Suski is an attack on the entirety of the legal academy, irrespective of individuals’ political affiliations or viewpoints. The integrity of legal education requires that law schools have decision-making authority over whom they hire; that law faculty have the power to choose what and how they teach in their classrooms; that legal scholars have the freedom to speak their minds; and that clinical faculty have unfettered discretion to decide which clients they will represent and how. Conceding autonomy over law school governance to political actors threatens not only the integrity of legal education, but sacrifices democratic values to forces of intimidation and intolerance.

We condemn the rescission of Professor Emily Suski’s deanship and call on all elected officials to respect freedom of speech and academic freedom as core pillars of our democracy. Finally, we urge all law faculty, deans, administrations, students, and members of the general public to resist the unchecked governmental pressures that stand to threaten the future of the legal academy.

Board of Directors, Clinical Legal Education Association

Executive Committee, Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools*

*This is a statement of the Executive Committee of the Clinical Section of the American Association of Law Schools only. It does not necessarily represent the position of the Association.