George Mason University announced, with much fanfare, that their law school had become the Antonin Scalia School of Law. Today they announced, with less fanfare, that they were changing it to the Antonin Scalia Law School. Silliness aside, Mason addressed the notion of current law students who may not wish to have this man's name on their diploma. Apparently there will be an option available. One wonders if this will be the case for incoming students as well
I read where the official name will remain the same, but the marketing and other materials about the school will reflect this alteration. I guess they decided that wasn't enough to keep that ASSOL down. I'm sure it was a difficult change. It's hard to get rid of an ASSOL.
What a load of silly crap. I'm not exactly thrilled have the signature (William Bulger) of an unindicted co-conspirator and felon on my UMass-Lowell diploma, but I wouldn't have cared enough to have even exercised the option if it was available. Any law student, whatever they think of Scalia's politics, should be thrilled to have such a brilliant legal mind associated with them. His opinions and writings will be studied in law schools long after we're all in the ground.
Well, Bruce - at least it wasn't his brother's - James J. "Whitey" Bulger's signature. :smile: I'm sure you'll be pleased that your Mr. Bulger is doing all right, at least financially. A quote from the Wiki: "According to the Massachusetts Open Checkbook list of state pensions, Bulger is currently receiving a pension from Massachusetts at a rate of $200,486 annually..." Whole article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Bulger J. P.S. I think it's fine you wouldn't have cared to change your U. Mass, Lowell diploma. I'd likely have felt the same in those circumstances. But a school with the acronym ASSOL -- yeah, for that I might want a change - no matter what it stood for. But now they've solved the acronym part, so...
Geez! $200,486.00! Plus, social security. They caught his brother Whitey here in California. I went to see Black Mass. The movie went on so long that I lost interest after a while. Still, that Whitey was quite the travieso.
Yes indeed, he was a state senator from South Boston & was Senate President for many years. That salary was nothing to sneeze at, but he apparently wanted the platinum parachute instead of the golden, so he was appointed President of the University of Massachusetts system, in spite of having absolutely zero prior experience in academia. That more than doubled his pension, which was more than $200,486 when he first retired, but was subsequently reduced because of a change in calculations that he fought tooth & nail.
Personally, I think George Mason should have just owned it. After what would surely be some initial resistance I have a feeling that alumni would begin taking great pride in the name. #WeAreASSOL! When I came into work this morning I saw one of our associate general counsels who was chuckling over an e-mail he had received from a colleague; it was a still of Lou Gehrig delivering his famous speech with the caption "Proud ASLS alumnus" across the top. Granted, "ASLS -> ALS" is somewhat of a stretch and of a much darker humor than ASSOL which is something everyone can get behind. But if George Mason thought that changing it was going to stop the internet from mocking them then they should probably learn more about the internet. To Bruce's point, I'm sure that there are a lot of signatures that people would prefer not to have. I imagine that there are diplomas floating out there bearing the signatures of indicted and convicted governors. But a signature line can be ignored fairly easily. If you have a Bronze Star signed by Clinton, or Bush or Reagan or Obama you can appreciate the honor regardless of the hand that bestowed it. But when your school name prophetically characterizes your entire profession I can see people getting a little worked up.
