The story
Ave Maria School of Law was founded in 1999, accepting its first class in 2000 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The law school's beginnings lie in discussions between Tom Monaghan and disgruntled current and former faculty members of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, including future founding dean Bernard Dobranski, former dean at Detroit Mercy Law School and then dean of Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, who complained that there were no "true Catholic" law schools. Monaghan supported the school through his Ave Maria Foundation and has served as the chairman of the board of governors of the school.
The founding board of governors included right-wing and pro-life religious and political figures including Henry Hyde, Edward Cardinal Egan, Robert P. George, Kate O'Beirne, Adam Cardinal Maida, Bowie Kuhn, Frank Joseph Dewane, and John Cardinal O'Connor. Robert Bork was an early faculty member and Antonin Scalia and Charles E. Rice consulted on the structure of the curriculum. Faculty and administrators are required to make a profession of faith and vow to follow Catholic teachings, the Magisterium, and the Holy See. In 2020, the school was described by the National Catholic Reporter as having "a more conservative religious orientation than any existing Catholic law school in the nation" and "militantly religious".
In 2002, Monaghan proposed a university campus at the Domino's Farms office park outside Ann Arbor to combine Ave Maria College and Ave Maria law school into Ave Maria University, including a 250-foot tall crucifix as a campus monument, but his plans were rejected by the Ann Arbor Township planning commission. After this rejection, and over extensive opposition from the school's administration, faculty, and students, Monaghan proposed to move the school from Ann Arbor to Florida. Following a purge by Monaghan of opposing administration and faculty members, the school moved from Ann Arbor to Florida in 2009. The initial plan was to co-locate the law school and university in Monaghan's proposed planned community Ave Maria, Florida, but after several years in leased temporary quarters in a former retirement home in Vineyards, in suburban Naples, Florida, the plan to co-locate in the city of Ave Maria was abandoned in 2015 and the law school purchased the facilities it had been leasing.
The law school was accredited by the ABA in 2005.
John Czarnetzky was named dean of the law school in May 2021.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ave Maria School of Law, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5