U of A School of Law Dean Offer Pulled After Lawmaker Pushback
Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester (R., Cave Springs) did not mince words when asked about the University of Arkansas’ decision to rescind its offer to Emily Suski to lead the School of Law.
“I can’t speak for the University of Arkansas,” Hester said, “but from my position, I was very clear with my contacts at the University of Arkansas how much I disapproved of that hire,” he told KATV.
Hester said his concerns centered on Suski’s public legal advocacy, including her decision to sign a friend-of-the-court (amicus) brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court supporting transgender students’ participation in school sports, a position he and other Republican officials argue directly conflicts with Arkansas law and the state’s education policy priorities.
Over the past several years, Arkansas lawmakers have moved aggressively to define sex-based policy in education. In 2021, the legislature passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act (Act 461), restricting participation in girls’ and women’s sports based on biological sex, and the SAFE Act (Act 626), limiting puberty blockers and gender-transition procedures for minors. Lawmakers followed in 2023 with Act 317, defining sex on the basis of biology, and Act 542, the “Given Name Act,” protecting school employees from being compelled to use preferred pronouns.
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders reinforced those priorities in a 2024 executive order directing state agencies and schools to resist the Biden administration’s Title IX rule changes and emphasizing that “sex is an immutable characteristic of the human body,” framing women’s sports, privacy, and free speech as core state interests.
Against that backdrop, Republican leaders said Suski’s legal positions raised concerns about whether she was the right fit to lead a publicly funded law school in Arkansas. In addition to the Supreme Court brief, lawmakers also cited a 2022 letter Suski signed with hundreds of law professors supporting the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, according to reporting by the Arkansas Advocate and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Only after those objections were raised did the University of Arkansas reverse course.
The university confirmed it rescinded Suski’s offer after receiving feedback from “key external stakeholders” about her “fit” for the role and decided to “go a different direction,” while emphasizing it continues to hold her “in high regard,” according to a statement from the Office of Provost.
Suski, a professor and associate dean at the University of South Carolina’s Joseph F. Rice School of Law, said she was “disappointed and hurt” by the decision and was told the reversal was not based on her qualifications but on “outside influence,” accordingto the Arkansas Advocate.
Civil-liberties and academic-freedom organizations criticized the move, warning it sends a chilling message to faculty. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) called the reversal “political interference in academic decision-making,” while the ACLU of Arkansas said it was unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech.
University officials have not said when the search for a new dean will restart, only that they intend to “go a different direction” in filling the vacancy. A spokesperson told the Arkansas Advocate that, to his knowledge, nothing like this has happened at the law school before and that next steps are still being determined.