Administrator at University of Florida Law School Resigns
Over Minority Hiring Practices
GAINESVILLE, Fla.
The highest-ranking Black administrator at the University of Florida’s law school resigned his position a week after a stormy meeting about the school’s difficulty in attracting and retaining Black professors.
Kenneth Nunn, associate dean for law center affairs, and others felt that increasing diversity should be the school’s primary concern. Others say race was being overemphasized to the detriment of teaching the school’s core courses.
Nunn, who has been at the university since 1990, will remain on the faculty. Officials in his office said he was not accepting calls from reporters seeking comment on his actions.
In an e-mail to the faculty last month, interim dean Jon Mills says Nunn’s decision to step down was based in part on “his concern with the law school’s inability to retain African American faculty members.”
Mills says he shares Nunn’s concerns.
“I have faith that this faculty can work toward a rational and fair solution,” Mills says.
The school has employed just seven Black professors since 1988 and currently lists only two African Americans among its 54 tenure or tenure-track faculty.
Stan Huguenin, a spokesman for the law school, says the university works hard to recruit Black faculty members, but so does almost every law school in the United States.
“There just aren’t that many Black law professors available,” he says.
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