My buddy Dan just emailed me about this, having read about it on Brian Leiter's law school blog. The University of Michigan Law School has scored a major coup by hiring Doug Laycock away from the University of Texas. Prof. Laycock is one of the leading constitutional scholars in the nation, particularly on church/state issues. The last decade has seen U of M lose many prominent legal scholars to other schools, so it's a very big deal for them to reverse that trend and attract a scholar of this importance from another school.
As is common these days, luring him away was a package deal. His wife, who has been the Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs for the University of Texas as well as a professor of law and sociology there, has also accepted the position of Provost at Michigan. Folks, that's a power couple. Congratulations to UofM for luring away such a compelling thinker.
UT didn't just issue a press release regarding Laycock's resignation, they released a celebration of his 25 years there. He gains high praise from his colleagues, and I can tell you from my limited interaction with him that it is well deserved. We have corresponded on the ReligionLaw listserv and in private email and he has always been enormously helpful and patient with this rank amateur when I've pestered him with questions.
Update: I just noticed on his bio that Prof. Laycock is also a Michigan State alumni. That changes my opinion completely. A Spartan taking a position at U of M? Preposterous. Unthinkable. A traitor in our midst! (/sarcasm)
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As one of Professor Laycock's former students (Remedies, 1996), this is big news. You'll never find a more pleasant, unassuming speaker and lecturer, with actual Supreme Court argumentation experience.
I'm actually getting tired of reading of these so-called high-profile professors being lured away from one university to another. A couple of years ago, the Boston Globe was publishing articles to the effect the high-profile professors in the black studies department at Harvard University were considering going elsewhere. As they would say in Germany geh schon (go already). It isn't as if they were Einstein, who actually did have something original to contribute.