Northwestern law dean abruptly steps down, takes new role at the school
May 21 (Reuters) - Northwestern University said its law school dean, Hari Osofsky, will step down from her post this summer to take another role at the university, an unusually short timeline for the departure of a senior academic official.
The change comes at a time when Osofsky and the law school face ongoing discrimination lawsuits and pressure from the Trump administration and conservatives over faculty hiring and the clients the law school's clinics represent.
In an email to Reuters on Wednesday, Osofsky said her decision to step down was not prompted by those pressures, but by her desire to focus on the rule of law and climate change.
"As we face foundational challenges to our legal system and justice, each of us needs to ask at a personal level what our values and sense of integrity require," Osofsky wrote.
Osofsky, who has led the Chicago-based law school since 2021, will oversee a new university energy innovation lab and head up the law school's recently launched global rule of the law program, according to a message to the university from its provost, Kathleen Hagerty.
When asked for comment on Osofsky's departure, a Northwestern spokesperson referred to Hagerty's message.
Northwestern's Pritzker School of Law has been in the crosshairs of conservatives for the past year. A group called Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences sued Osofsky and other law school administrators in July, claiming its law school discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and in the selection of articles that appear in its flagship law review. That case is ongoing.
On May 13, a federal judge ruled that a former Northwestern law student can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit that claims the school failed to protect her from being harassed over her pro-Palestine activism. That suit also named Osofsky as a defendant.
Northwestern law's clinics in April successfully fought off a U.S. House of Representatives committee's probe for information about their representation of pro-Palestinian protestors. The committee dropped its efforts after two Northwestern clinical professors sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the university from turning over clinic data.
Read more:
US House drops probe for data from university over pro-Palestinian protestor cases
Northwestern law school sued for discrimination against white men in faculty hiring
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