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How can a writer who writes so horribly be the legal writing director at FAMU law school?
By Surajit Sen Sharma

It's not surprising that students, especially law students, would expect their professors to practice what they preach. So, it's not surprising that Victoria Dawson, the legal writing director at Florida A&M University (FAMU) found her students questioning her rights to teach them. According to an email sent by a law student to the St. Petersburg Times, the legal writing director of FAMU "can neither write nor spell." That is surprising.

St. Petersburg Times staff enquired into the matter and ran a report on June 6, 2007. The report written by Ron Matus and supported by Times researcher Caryn Baird found that some FAMU law students held that Dawson did not possess the qualities required for her position and had been hired primarily upon her personal ties. The disgruntled students brought to notice a working paper published by Dawson in 2004, which has since been removed from the Internet.

The paper, titled "environmental dispute resolution" was primarily submitted to Berkley Electronic Press, which ran a paid submission service. BEP posted the paper on the Internet as they received it from Dawson. Apparently, the company has a policy of not editing drafts of articles that authors post to get feedback from their colleagues. They conveyed as much to the Times office.

The paper in controversy, as found by students, faculty, and Times staff, is full of clumsy writing. Considering that Dawson's job is to teach students the way to prepare coherent legal briefs, one can hardly turn a blind eye to these errors and incoherency found in her own writing as pointed out by students and Times staff:

·          "Old pipes, rusty and in possible need of repair, run above ground, crisscrossing every which way in cumbersome clusters may have experienced undetected leaks."

·          "He consulted with government officials and he sent his general manager of asset management representative repeatedly crossed the creek to negotiate with village leaders of Ugborodo during the women's 10-day occupation."

·          "This inherent conflict between economic development and environmental protection needs and interest and the focus of managing environmental disputes for sustainable results is the cause of a 10-day delay in productions and obligations."

·          "International environmental disputes can involve parties who hold very strong feelings that they are right and other parties are wrong present unique challenges if fundamental values are in conflict."

Going through the errors, one is hardly aware whether it is literature of the absurd or coming from the pen of a legal writing director at a prestigious law school.

An English education professor at the University of South Florida who reviewed the paper at the request of Times' staff wrote in an email that the paper was "sloppily written, in need of serious proofreading."

The interim dean, Ruth Witherspoon did not care to comment on written complaints by students on the issue made in both March and May. Predictably, Times staff also did not receive any response from her office when they emailed.

Now, if all this is true and Dawson writes so sloppily, and she got her appointment through personal ties – then how did she get into her previous job of a legal writing instructor at Texas Southern University?

Posted on: 06/07/2007 05:29 AM | Number of feedback 1

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It's not surprising! Maybe the
tea cher or other facuklty in the school discover his skills of being a writer. A writer is compose of different forms.

Posted by: niannluz on 06/07/2007 09:31 PM

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