The ‘Michael Maurer’ School of Law

Earlier this month, my alma mater, Indiana University School of Law¹ announced that it was changing it’s name to the “Michael Maurer School of Law”. It turns out that this guy donated a large sum of money ($35 million) to the school and it was during a capital campaign so the university at large matched it (or, rather, is going to match the proceeds of it).

There was an awful lot of confusion and anger among current students and alumni. It took me a few weeks to really solidify my opinion on it all, and a conversation the other night with a fellow alum² made me realize that I never really posted anything about this outside of facebook, and that I probably needed to, for posterity if nothing else.

As to the actual name change itself, I oscillated between not really caring all that much and thinking it was kinda funny. Granted, I disagree, on principle, with naming law schools³ after rich people who have done virtually nothing to advance legal scholarship, but that’s a minor quibble. The things that really irritated me were the miscellaneous extras that went along with it. I don’t like the way it was handled, I don’t like fawning over the guy, and I don’t like the insinuation that I should be thankful for it.

To me, the most aggravating part of this whole thing is the way in which it was carried out. IU’s Board of Trustees actually voted to change the name in September of this year — suggesting very strongly that this had been in the works since well before I graduated, but it was announced to students and alumni at the same time the rest of the world found out about it. “Gotcha” style law school administration is nothing new for Dean Robel, who sprang a huge (15% if I recall correctly) tuition increase on us over the summer between my second and third years. The first we heard of that was when we got or bills in the mail. She apologized profusely and provided a decent and plausible explanation. I accepted that at face value really didn’t think much more of it. This event, though, I think puts that in context. It’s starting to seem like Robel is firmly in the “ask forgiveness rather than permission” school of thought.

I’m not so big on Mr. Maurer, either. I will grant that $35 million is an awful lot of money and will do a lot of good for a lot of people, but let’s not get too carried away with the high praise. In point of fact, what Mr. Maurer did was purchase the naming rights to a law school. I wasn’t around back then but I sincerely doubt that, when Anheuser-Busch bought the naming rights to the venue formerly known as Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, that they were heralded for their “generosity.”

In the early part of this decade, the San Francisco populace and news media showed their “gratitude” for 3Com’s “generous” renaming of Candlestick Park to 3Com Park by basically boycotting the name and passing ballot measures to rename it back to Candlestick. The contract and terms might be different in this case, but they’re insignificant. The bottom line is that cash was handed over and an entire institution’s name was changed.

Maurer’s comments that he did this as a way of saying “thank you” for all that IU has done for him probably provided me with my biggest “WTF Moment”. How does that thought process go?

Thank you all so, so much for all that you’ve done. I so greatly appreciate it that I will be changing the name of your school to my name — this way you can never forget all of the great things you’ve done for me.

Uh, yeah. That’s fantastic. I might need to put in a letter to Miss Manners, though. What’s the appropriate way to say “you’re welcome”? Do we need to name our first born sons after him? Or maybe I have it backwards… do we buy the naming rights to HIS kids? I don’t know.

The most eye-roll-inducing behavior, though, was the sanctimonious “you should be thankful, this is good for all of us” nonsense that came from a number of my former classmates. I have yet to hear even one compelling argument as to how this will be good for me⁴.

The best one I’ve heard goes something like this: the “donation” leads to more scholarships, which leads to better students, which leads to a better school (in ranking and/or reputation), which is good for all of us. I do not doubt that this scenario could play out eventually, what I doubt is that it will take place in time to do me any good. After all, we’re not too many years away from the day when the IU Law Class of 2008’s experience far out-weighs the value of their degrees. I’m also skeptical as to how big of an impact this will have — in the current “arms race” state of law school admissions, I wonder how long it will be until we’ve been eclipsed again in scholarships by the other schools around us.

One also has to take into account that this is a change in brand and will take a good bit of time to percolate out. How long will it be before people in the legal community associate “The Michael Maurer School of Law” with IU? One big plus to this, if it ever happens, is that it will stop that unscrupulous bunch up at IUPUI’s law school from tossing “Indiana University” on their resumes in hopes that the employers will assume they mean the one in Bloomington⁵.

The bottom line, for me, is that I wish Dean Robel had handled this in a more forthright way and I think we ought to dispense with the “he’s sooo generous” talk. He’s a rich dude who bought the naming rights to a law school.

1. The good one.

2. Hi, Holly!

3. I think naming buildings, chairs, and other things are much more appropriate.

4. Make no mistake, I don’t think this should be a requirement, I just think the argument is silly.

5. In fact, outside of Indiana, a shockingly small number of attorneys actually even know there’s another law school in the IU system, leading this to be surprisingly effective.

Tags: Indiana University, Michael Maurer, Naming Rights