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Last year a proposal to relocate Ave Maria School of Law from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a new campus near Naples, Florida, sparked outrage among students, faculty, and alumni ["Heck, No, We Won't Go," Summer 2006]. Now the relocation plan is set to become reality in summer 2009. But the move still isn't popular with many faculty members and alums, who claim that the school's leaders have not made a case for it.

"We just feel it is risky to pick up a school that has been flourishing and move it to a place where we don't know what the benefit will be," says Richard Myers, a tenured professor at the seven-year-old law school. "It doesn't relate to whether we want to move to Florida, it's just that the faculty as a group was never consulted on the proposal.

"The main reason the board voted to relocate the law school was to share a location with Ave Maria University, which recently opened in southwest Florida, near Naples, says law school dean and president Bernard Dobranski. Both the law school and the university were started and endowed by Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, Inc., and they share a conservative Catholic orientation.

"Moving will enhance our ability to perform our mission," Dobranski says. "Many Catholics are moving into the area; it's the fastest-growing metropolitan area in Florida not served by a law school."

The move of the 365-student school has been approved by the Ave Maria School of Law board of governors. Approval of the move by the American Bar Association is pending.

The decision to move the law school comes at a time when professors have been unhappy with the law school's governance. The faculty voted "no confidence" in the dean last spring. The Ave Maria board of governors never met with faculty members to address those concerns, Myers says.

"It's unheard-of for a dean to survive a no-confidence vote," Myers says, adding that the faculty believes that its concern about the school's governance should have been addressed before the decision to relocate was made.

The faculty also filed a complaint with the ABA last year, alleging that the school does not comply with ABA standards. (The school received ABA accreditation in 2005.) The contents of the complaint are confidential, but an ABA fact-finder visited the school in mid-March, says ABA spokeswoman Nancy Slonim. No decision on the complaint has been made, but Myers says he believes the complaint could be a factor in whether the school receives approval to relocate to Florida.

Alumni of the law school, which opened in 1999, are split over whether the decision to move is a good one, says Brian Hoeing, a 2005 graduate and member of the alumni association's board of directors. "I feel that it is a good opportunity," he says. "It does have a downside with regard to the change and inconvenience for the faculty, but overall I think it is a good move."

David Krause, a 2003 graduate who is also a member of the alumni board, has a different view, which he expressed in a letter to the board of governors on May 1. He asked the board to justify its decision to move the school to Florida, writing that he hopes the "reasoning is not so blunt as 'Tom Monaghan's money.' "Krause is opposed to the move because he believes that it is not a relocation but an actual shutdown of the school. Since the law school is incorporated in Michigan, the Florida school would be a completely new school, he says: "If [the change] doesn't destroy the school, it's going to come close."