Indiana Tech Accused of ‘Bait and Switch’

By students of the soon-to-be-closed law school? NO! By a lawyer representing an aggrieved faculty member, according to Fort Wayne’s News-Sentinel:

[Indiana Tech’s board of director’s] decision “throws into chaos the lives and academic plans of the student body. The law school’s tuition is just under $20,000. You don’t have to be a lawyer to be repulsed by this outrageous bait and switch.”

I predict very few lawyers are repulsed by Indiana Tech’s decision. I’m not the first to opine on it, but Indiana Tech School of Law’s demise benefits humanity. It was never fully enrolled, only one of its twelve graduates passed the bar, and at last the board saw the writing in the blue book. Whether it will herald more law school closures is debatable. I think many of its peers will see Indiana Tech as an Icarus rather than a bellwether.

If I were cynical, I’d suspect Indiana Tech knew it was going to fail and used its provisional accreditation as a sword to rescue its students from the ignominy of starting their legal educations over at a more sound ABA school than a shield against total failure.

Otherwise, I have very little to say on this subject, except to remind everyone of those bygone days five years ago when Indiana Tech School of Law was a glint in its board’s eyes—and its Feasibility Committee was warning that there would be an attorney shortage so unbearable that we’d have to import foreign lawyers. Seriously, it was that dishonest.

Now Indiana Tech’s president, Arthur Snyder, concedes, “Over the course of time it has become apparent that the significant decline in law school applicants nationwide represents a long term shift in the legal education field, not a short-term one.”

Many voices warned Indiana Tech not to open a law school. It ignored them and made a $20 million mistake. But don’t expect it to apologize to its students for its hubris—they’re the ones who really paid.