The University of Arkansas-Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law began as UA-Fayetteville's night division (yes, in Little Rock) in 1965. A decade later, the Legislature created UA-Little Rock's law school; transferred thereto Fayetteville's night program; and added a full-time component.

In 2023, Colin Crawford became Bowen's dean. Shortly thereafter, he suggested killing Bowen's in-person night program and replacing it with yet another online law school. When confronted with a buzzsaw of opposition in Arkansas' legal community, Crawford paused this misadventure.

Today, Arkansas-based part-time law students have the option of either attending the state's only in-person night law school or enrolling in one of several existing online schools. If Bowen's night program goes online, Arkansans lose this choice.

Last week, I wrote about state Sen. Dan Sullivan's efforts to curtail new attempts to replace Bowen's night program with an online one and his delivery of Ten Commandments posters to Bowen for display.

I relayed Crawford's unexpected public inquisition of Sullivan, wherein Crawford charged: "So you brought those 19 [framed Ten] Commandments to the law school. You could have gone [elsewhere] . . . but you came here to the law school, and I believe, haven't gone elsewhere . . . [And] you also then submitted a piece of 'special legislation' that would have had the effect of tying up the university budget if, if the law school did not, was, was not prohibited from having an online program. So the question is, because I've been asked it many times, what's [your] beef with us. Why [are you] singling out the school of law?"

Sullivan answered, correcting Crawford's misrepresentations: "First of all, I'm not singling [the law school] out. I took [the posters previously] to Jonesboro schools. I think I had 400 that I took--close to that--[and] I took [several of] them to Arkansas State University . . . [And] why did I take the position of putting a hold on the [university's] budget? [I did so] because I had a number of people in the law school and outside of law........

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