Clarification: The Oct. 17, 2006 letter mentioned in the page Page One article "Law school dean involved in possible conflict of interest" (SN 2/19), Page One article "College of Law seeks stable, reliable dean in new search" (SN 10/8/07), page 4a editorial "Stability, longevity needed for college of law" (SN 10/10/07) and Page One article "Move to strike" (SN 10/27/06) from the president of the law college to then-Dean Terence Blackburn said "the office of Provost has investigated the oral charges made against you by certain faculty members and found such charges to be unsubstantiated and without merit."

The halls of the MSU College of Law are filled with rumors and speculation regarding its dean, Terence Blackburn, and other faculty members.

In May, tenured faculty members sent a letter to the MSU College of Law Board of Trustees and other administrators requesting that the dean be removed. Numerous faculty members contacted by The State News this month have not disclosed why they asked for Blackburn's dismissal.

In a letter sent Oct. 17, Clifton Haley, president of the law college, said the board decided there was not enough justification for his removal. But the next day, Haley announced Blackburn was granted an administrative leave until June 30, 2007.

Meanwhile, law school students say they have been left out of the loop, and one said recent events are unprecedented.

MSU Provost Kim Wilcox, Haley, faculty and law school students participated in a question-and-answer session Tuesday.

"The meeting showed at least the trustees are concerned about students, but it felt more like damage control," said Jason Gordon, a third-year law student.

"It leaves students to wonder why they didn't care about students' concerns before. For the most part, they had students' best interest at heart, but there are more issues at hand."

Gordon said he was glad administrators held the session but that he would have liked to hear from Blackburn himself.

During the meeting, officials announced Blackburn's plans while on his administrative leave. Haley said Blackburn has agreed to take a short-term assignment to assist the American Bar Association, or ABA, on an international mission in Jordan.

During the session, a student asked why Blackburn chose to take his leave of absence so close to the time of accreditation, which was supposed to occur this week. If a college is accredited, its students can practice law in any state. The MSU College of Law is an accredited law school.

Wilcox responded by saying, "It's a matter of when opportunities become available and when things happen. I don't have an answer for his exact thinking."

Wilcox, who is the university's chief academic officer, did not return repeated phone calls this week from The State News seeking further comment about Blackburn's sudden departure from the law school.

Haley said Blackburn was expected to be at MSU during the site visit.

"The students asked for some clarification, and they asked to have more information," Haley said. "The provost and I met with them to do what is normally done and discuss the law college."

Third-year law student Joseph Calhoun said he thought the meeting was helpful because it showed a "new sense of willingness with administration to communicate with students."

However, not all questions were answered. Calhoun said there are probably confidential details that can't be revealed.

Calhoun, who spoke on behalf of the students, felt they had many concerns that were not being addressed.

"We feel that there has been a significant lack of communication and lack of transparency during the past few months and, to some extent, in general during our tenure at MSU College of Law," Calhoun wrote in his speech. "The ongoing situation has given the student body the impression that the administration, generally speaking, holds the belief that the students do not deserve to know what is going on within this very institution.

"Whether he is coming back or not is speculation. Many students and faculty are not expecting him to come back."

During the session, Wilcox said ABA members were scheduled to review the school for accreditation this week. They came — but not as planned.

"Two of them are here," Wilcox said. "The rest of them thought, given we are in the center of an interim dean identification, it would be best for the rest of the team to come back in the spring. So a few people came to ensure all is well at the law college at Michigan State. … They said they just postponed the site visit for a few months."

Gordon said he was happy to see ABA officials push back the review. It allows for a fair assessment of the law school so they don't "jump in while we are in crisis mode," he said.

Every seven years, officials from the ABA and the Association of American Law Schools choose a group of people to evaluate law schools' facilities, classes and faculty.

Haley said the accreditation process is normal and has been planned for more than a year.

Since moving into its current building on MSU's campus in 1997, the number of accepted students has more than doubled. Class sizes have risen from 200 to 271, and the median GPA has risen from 3.0 to 3.4. Median LSAT scores rose from 151 to 157.

Haley said the college will not be affected by Blackburn's leave of absence.

"We are going to function as all law schools do when there is a change or leave," Haley said. "Good law colleges function as well as they have to and do what they have to do."

But faculty and students still contend that they have not been told what will happen in the future of the school.

It is unclear whether or not Blackburn made comments that were unfavorable to faculty in the college's self-analysis, which was submitted to the ABA for accreditation.

Susan Bitensky, professor of law, was the main author of the fourth chapter in the college's self-analysis, which deals with faculty resources.

She submitted a letter to ABA officials as a rebuttal to Blackburn's comments in the report the faculty had to prepare before their visit because she feels it "misrepresents the self-study process and the dean's participation in it."

"I sent it to give a factual account of history of the drafting of the self study, the sessions that were held and how they were conducted," Bitensky said.

In the letter, she said Blackburn missed two sessions that dealt with her chapter of the study and said at the end of a Sept. 15 meeting, he "accused the faculty of being liars in relation to chapter 4."

"The Dean did not bother to give faculty notice that he would be absent from those two sessions; he did not seek rescheduling of the sessions that he missed; nor did he provide a sympathetic colleague with a punch list of his concern for the colleague to raise at the two meetings," Bitensky said in the letter. "Therefore, it was a matter of the Dean's choice to miss the two meetings and fail to participate in them."