With the decrease in hiring comes the fear that rancor might return to the North Yard.
“We had an appointments logjam prior to Kagan,” Fallon said. “We will not be able to make as many appointments, and there may be some fear of sliding back into logjam.”
Minow—who said the Law School will likely appoint between two and 8 positions—downplayed the likelihood that tension over faculty appointments will return and said that the methodological battles of the 80s are a thing of the past.
“It’s not the nature of our current conversation,” Minow said.
But concern among the faculty remains.
“I think seeing how the faculty deals with a world with fewer appointments will be an important issue,” said Mark V. Tushnet ’67, a Law School professor and member of the appointments committee. “That’s not saying that it’s going to be an issue, but it’s an issue that will be evidently different.”
—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.