Statement from Professor Charles E. Rice on Recent Events at Ave Maria School of Law

Professor Charles Rice, faithful Catholic and America's preeminent scholar on the Natural Law and Catholic Legal Theory, weighs in on the recent personnel actions taken against a number of law professors at Ave Maria School of Law:

Charles E. Rice
August 15, 2007

What Monaghan and Dobranski have done and are doing at Ave Maria School of Law [AMSL] is objectively evil and contrary to Catholic social teaching. No good will come of it. In my opinion, Monaghan and Dobranski, without procedural or substantive justification, have taken the livelihoods of honest and competent professors, with large families, whose commitment to AMSL is, in my opinion, greater than that of either Monaghan or Dobranski. The dismissal of the faculty members is part of a process that can fairly be described, in a non-technical and non-criminal sense, as a hijacking of AMSL by Monaghan and Dobranski. Those who signed on with Dobranski to take the jobs of those unjustly discharged are materially cooperating in evil. Perhaps some were impelled by their own economic circumstances. I offer no personal judgment on any of them or on Monaghan and Dobranski. But I would surely advise any interested parties that it makes sense not to have anything to do with any enterprise in which either Monaghan or Dobranski is even slightly involved. The actions of Monaghan and Dobranski may have made AMSL a terminal case. Its potential has been undermined by the subordination of its interests to other interests and by the subservience of its misnamed Board of Governors to that subordination. The Governors who should have performed their fiduciary duty to AMSL are somewhere in the tall grass to which they lit out when choosing time occurred. I emphasize that I offer no judgment on the motivations or purpose of them or of Monaghan and Dobranski. But it is fair to say that their actions and inactions, in objective terms, are reprehensible, immoral and despicable.

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
WSJ: "The Trials of Ave Maria School of Law"

Nightline Calls Ave Maria U "A Catholic Jonestown"

"Let's face it, ... Sir Thomas More would have been denied tenure today ..."

Ave Maria Law Faculty Speak Out - Substantial Majority of Faculty Have No Plans to Participate in Relocation

Washington Post Weighs in on Misguided Magnate of Mozzarella

Ave Maria to Keep Ex-Provost After Outcry (3 articles)

Understatement of the Day

Moneyman Monaghan's Megalomaniacal Meltdown

Professor Rice Responds

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