University of Iowa pauses law dean search after finalists visit

IOWA CITY — After evaluating campus feedback to a trio of finalists under consideration to become the next University of Iowa College of Law dean, UI leadership has determined “none of the candidates was the right fit for the position.”

With longtime UI law professor Todd Pettys set to take over on an interim basis for outgoing College of Law Dean Kevin Washburn on Dec. 31, UI leadership has decided to pause its search for a permanent replacement.

“We are grateful for the three candidates who visited our campus and engaged with our university,” UI Executive Vice President and Provost Kevin Kregel said in a statement. “While each made a strong case, we felt that we needed to step back and take some additional time to make sure we find the right leader for Iowa Law.”

The university launched its national search in July — about a month after Washburn in May announced plans to step down and join the UI faculty as a tenured professor at the end of this calendar year.

The three finalists the university brought to campus earlier this month included law school leaders in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Ohio.

Having been at the University of Toledo since 1995, Zietlow also holds the positions of distinguished university professor and the Charles W. Fornoff Professor of Law and Values. She founded the Thirteenth Amendment Project, established in 2006 as an interdisciplinary nationwide endeavor to explore the “history and promise of the 13th Amendment.”

Zietlow got her JD from Yale Law School and was a visiting professor at the UI College of Law in spring 2011.

She got her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

He also is a senior fellow in the Rodel Public Leadership Program, “helping create curricula and lead sessions with state and federal judges across the ideological spectrum to build capacity and jurisprudential discourse.”

Before restarting a search for a new dean, Provost Kregel will meet with leaders and other College of Law groups,

Pettys — who joined the UI College of Law faculty in 1999 and has served as the H. Blair and Joan V. White Chair in Civil Litigation since 2009 — will take over interim leadership Jan. 1. He’ll stay on until a new dean is in place.

“I look forward to working with Todd during this transition period,” Kregel said in November. “The college will be in excellent hands until the next dean is able to start at Iowa.”

‘Temporary public service assignment’

Washburn joined the UI faculty in 2018 and during his time at Iowa was tapped for national appointments on a couple of occasions.

From August 2020 to January 2021, Washburn served as captain of the Department of the Interior Agency Review Team for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris Transition in Washington, D.C.

In that role, according to his CV, Washburn “managed a staff who developed plans to staff the U.S. Department of the Interior and implement campaign promises related to climate change, racial justice, environmental justice, and other important subjects to create a successful beginning for the Biden-Harris Administration.”

Washburn reported leading a team of 13 professionals “who met daily for more than six weeks and held hundreds of meetings with thousands of stakeholders, ultimately producing more than 50 planning memoranda in less than eight weeks.”

Due to the intensity of that role, Washburn on Nov. 10 informed the college he’d be taking a leave of absence.

“After consulting with the provost and my management team, I have decided to accept this temporary public service assignment,” Washburn wrote in the email. “For the next few weeks, I will be taking leave from the College of Law, though I will continue to be available for urgent matters. The leave is only temporary.”

He committed to be “mostly back at the College of Law by mid-December.”

“The end of the year is a critical time for development work for our college, and so this is a difficult time to be on leave,” Washburn wrote. “I ask each of you for your support and to do a little extra work with our development staff if you have time.”

Months later, in October 2021, Washburn was chosen by federal district court and bankruptcy judges to “create trusts and direct the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars of settlement funds arising from opioid litigation against Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and several other defendants.” As director/trustee over the qualified settlement trusts, Washburn was tasked with distributing funds to tribal governments “for prevention and abatement of opioid problems in tribal communities nationwide.”

When asked for communication about Washburn’s service with the opioid settlement and its impact on his UI work, the university said responsive records are confidential.

“Dean Washburn’s work with the opioid litigation is performed in a personal capacity, outside of his responsibilities to the university,” according to the UI records custodian. “In accordance with the university’s conflicts of commitment and interest policies, employees are expected to disclose external activities that may pose a potential conflict. Communications related to such disclosures would be confidential personnel records.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com