Let George Do It!(tribute to Professor George W. Dent) (Testimonial)

• Author: Barnettf, Randy E.

It is my honor and pleasure to voice my praise for George Dent upon his retirement. I have known George since I was a very junior professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. Notwithstanding my "juniority," he always treated me with respect and took an interest in my ideas and my development as an academic. But it was not until the past few years that I have had the pleasure of working closely with George.

Although we have known each other a long time, it was not until the formation of the Law Professors Division of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy that I became fully aware that he was a political conservative. As a libertarian myself, I never held this against him, though he was always a curmudgeonly sort of conservative. To the contrary, I found that aspect of his personality endearing.

But what I found most endearing was George's refusal to take for granted the existing woeful underrepresentation of conservatives and libertarians on law school faculties. And rather than grumble about it--or, more precisely, in addition to grumbling about it--he resolved to actually do something about it. So, a few years ago, he assembled by email a small group of likeminded law professors to reach out to the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS") to see if they might be induced to take some action.

We all knew this was going to be either an uphill struggle or like beating one's head against the wall--or more like beating one's head against a wall while walking uphill. So we corresponded and discussed, but George simply would not let any of us go about our business until we did something. And so we did. We asked for a meeting with the Executive Committee of the AALS, but were refused. So we met with the then-AALS President Dan Rodriguez and its Executive Director, my former Georgetown colleague Judy Areen. In our meeting we made suggestions for what the AALS might do to help rectify the imbalance.

Partially as a result, several conservatives and libertarians were asked by the AALS to serve on various committees. George himself was invited to be on the Program Committee. I was asked to be on the Planning Committee for the New Law Teachers Conference and a political conservative is now the current Planning Committee chair. Eventually, the Executive Committee relented and agreed to meet with a subset of us at its annual meeting during the AALS in New York City, where we enunciated our list of grievances.

When, after a year, we received...