‘A historic act of arrogance’: UM law alumni slam Frenk after dean’s firing, pen letter
Taking a decisive stand over the whirlwind affecting their alma mater, about 60 University of Miami law school alumni sent a letter to top university administrators Friday strongly criticizing the firing of law school Dean Anthony Varona and requesting a meeting, an unprecedented move.
The members of the University of Miami Law Alumni Association, who include some of Miami’s most prominent attorneys, stamped their names on the correspondence, addressed to UM President Julio Frenk, Provost Jeffrey Duerk and Board of Trustees Chair Hilarie Bass.
“As alumni leaders and supporters of the University of Miami and our School of Law, we are surprised and saddened over the termination of Dean Varona,” reads the letter, signed by Timothy A. Kolaya, president of the alumni association, Julie Braman Kane, president-elect of the group, and Daniel Newman, vice president. “We are particularly concerned by the lack of process and the failure to consult with important stakeholders, including the faculty and alumni leaders.”
Frenk first announced Varona’s removal in an email Tuesday, sparking an outcry among faculty — who weren’t consulted prior despite UM policies stipulating otherwise — along with students, alumni and other law professionals. Although he didn’t divulge specific reasons for the termination, Frenk alluded to problems with fundraising. A decline in national rankings and low UM passage rates for the Florida Bar exam might have contributed.
In addition to the alumni letter, several other prominent lawyers have criticized UM for firing the law school’s first Hispanic dean and one who has been a leader in the LGBTQ community, with one lawyer calling Frenk’s action “tone-deaf.” Varona was born in Cuba and is openly gay.
Varona, 53, joined UM in August 2019 after 14 years as a vice dean and associate dean for faculty and academic affairs at American University’s Washington College of Law.
Less than two years later, he stands to lose his deanship July 1. Frenk offered to let Varona stay on as a tenured faculty member and to keep his title as the M. Minnette Massey Professor of Law.
One of Varona’s vice deans, Lili Levi, tendered her resignation Tuesday in protest, while UM’s Faculty Senate unanimously approved a resolution Thursday denouncing Frenk’s move. Levi, a Harvard Law School graduate who has been at the law school for 34 years, will continue as a media law professor.
Varona didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.
Peter Howard, the assistant vice president of communications and public relations at UM, declined to comment Friday, instead referencing the initial message Frenk sent Tuesday.
“That contains all of the information you need,” Howard told a Herald reporter.
Frenk, who was president when Varona was hired, has not commented publicly about the matter.
Bass, the board chair, did not answer questions from a Herald reporter. On Saturday, the website for the University of Miami Board of Trustees showed that Bass was no longer the board chair and that the vice chair, Laurie S. Silvers, was now the board chair. Bass, an alumnus of the law school, a former president of the American Bar Association and a former co-president of the law firm Greenberg Traurig, was appointed in May 2019 to a two-year term.
Alumni cite Varona’s accomplishments
In their letter, the alumni praised Varona for his “passion, enthusiasm, and ability to connect with and advocate on behalf of the Law School, its students and its alumni.”
They noted Varona’s initiative to support student summer placement efforts, establish an emergency fund to help students during the pandemic and raise $8 million for the law school since he came on board, much of that during the pandemic.
They also commended him for recruiting his first class of law students in fall 2020, which they describe as having “the most competitive credentials of any entering Miami Law class during the past 30 years.”
The association leaders asked to meet with UM administrators “in the coming days to express our concerns and to address how this decision will impact our students and alumni moving forward.”
Miami-Dade County Public Defender Carlos Martinez, who graduated from the law school in 1990, said he didn’t sign the letter because he doesn’t occupy a position in the alumni association. But, he noted, “it’s a good letter” and if he were to have written it, it “would have been a hell of a lot stronger.”
Martinez said he has never heard of the association penning a similar correspondence in the past.
“To me, that indicates the widespread support for the dean remaining the dean,” he said. “It sends a very strong message that the university administration cannot ignore.”
All of the alumni that Martinez has spoken to since the news broke want the university to reinstate Varona, he said. He personally wants Frenk to retract what he considers a defamatory statement about Varona, the same demand of Varona’s lawyer, Debra Katz.
Katz, in an email she sent to Frenk on Thursday, demanded that Frenk retract what he wrote in his email, in which he said, “the need for a dean with the required vision and effectiveness of execution to bring the school to new levels of excellence.”
Katz, like Martinez, called the statement “defamatory.”
“A really good sign of a mature university is when they have a mistake to correct the mistake no matter how public it is,” Martinez told the Herald. “You have to learn from your mistake, and to me, this has been a tremendous mistake.”
‘Tone-deaf act’ to fire first Hispanic dean, LGBTQ leader
Another prominent Miami attorney and UM law school alum, Tod Aronovitz, wrote a private email to Frenk, criticizing him for removing the law school’s first Hispanic dean and one who has been a leader in the LGBTQ community.
Varona was born in Cuba in 1967 and immigrated to the United States as a child with his family; he was raised in New Jersey. He was the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization.
“For decades, the UM administration has ignored, underfunded, and micromanaged the UM School of Law. However, to fire a Dean who was broadly admired by his students and faculty without even conferring with the faculty is a historic act of arrogance,” Aronovitz wrote in the email, which he shared with the Herald.
“Taking this abrupt action after our diligent Dean was only at the helm of UM Law for 18 Covid-19 hectic months is stunning. Further, your timing of terminating a respected Dean who is the first Hispanic and member of the LGBTQ community Dean during the UM Fundraising Campaign is a tone-deaf act,” he added.
Aronovitz said he has fielded and seen “many emails, calls and social media postings expressing outrage.”
At least one other organization also criticized UM for forcing Varona to step down: the Executive Committee of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Minority Groups.
In an open letter released Thursday, the group called for an “independent and credible investigation into the actual reasons for Dean Varona’s firing,” partly because of Varona’s identity as a gay and Hispanic man.
“Dean Varona has earned deep admiration, respect, and friendship throughout the legal academy of the United States,” the letter reads.
“It is unfathomable that the University of Miami should take such an arbitrary, capricious, and unilateral action against him.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
