Law School Raising Money For Out-Of-Work Staff. If It’s Not Your School… It Should Be.

While transitioning to online classes, arguing with admins over grading policy, and trying to get a responsible solution to the bar exam problem are all stressful, law students aren’t facing the same sort of stress that school staff have to deal with right now.

Many of the people who really make the school go are out of work right now and institutions haven’t been great about helping them out. Harvard got heaping helpings of deserved scorn when they just fired everybody rather than invade their $8B endowment for a couple of weeks, but other schools face the same pressures and legitimately didn’t have the cash on hand to keep people on.

Some UVA Law professors have started a GoFundMe drive to help out the contract workers and other employees — like the folks who work in the cafeteria and coffee shop — who are hurting during the school’s physical shutdown. The campaign set a goal to raise $20K and… blew past that in two days!

They’ve upped the effort to a $30K goal and keep raking in donations.

We give UVA a lot of ribbing here — mostly because they channel their insecurity over our jabs into high art — but UVA has really stepped up and shown everyone what a good community does in times of crisis. From the student outpouring to protect one of their own from the whims of bureaucracy to raising money for staff members, the UVA community is the example that every school should be following.

So kudos to UVA Law. Thanks for taking time from your Vineyard Vines shopping spree to help out.

The rest of you should get on that.

Support for the Scott Commons and UVA Community [GoFundMe]