Less than a week after naming a new dean, the University of Arkansas Law School withdrew the appointment, saying on Wednesday that the decision was based on “feedback from key external stakeholders.”
The appointee, Emily Suski, a legal scholar at the University of South Carolina, had been selected after a lengthy public search, and the university’s provost, Indrajeet Chaubey, praised her work on medical partnerships to help low-income children when the choice was announced on Jan. 9.
The feedback that derailed the appointment, members of the state legislature said, was related to her signature on an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court last year in support of transgender student athletes.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas supported the decision to withdraw the offer, according to her spokesman, Sam Dubke. “Governor Sanders appreciates the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, for reaching the common sense decision on this matter in the best interest of students,” Mr. Dubke said in a statement.
The brief that Ms. Suski signed was filed in a case that was argued this week before the Supreme Court. Dan Sullivan, an Arkansas state senator, said the views expressed in the brief were inconsistent with Arkansas law.
“If you look at some of her opinions to the Supreme Court and amicus briefs, I think she has not reflected the laws of the state of Arkansas,” said Mr. Sullivan, a Republican from Jonesboro who applauded the decision to rescind the offer.
Arkansas was the first state to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors.
The episode is an example of how politics has increasingly been influencing university decisions about faculty hiring, which were once the exclusive purview of academics.
The effect of the nation’s highly charged political environment has been felt primarily in the selection of university presidents, including an episode last year at the University of Florida. The school’s board chose Santa Ono, a former president of the University of Michigan, who was criticized by conservatives for his past support of diversity initiatives. The board’s decision was overruled by a statewide board of political appointees.
But political pressures are also influencing searches for deans and even professors.
In some cases, universities have begun to treat job searches, which were once fairly public, as carefully guarded secrets, in order to avoid putting prospective hires in awkward positions if they are rejected. At Arkansas, however, the search for a new law school dean was conducted publicly, with four top candidates making presentations in open meetings.
The University of Arkansas, which had issued a statement Wednesday saying that its offer to Ms. Suski had been withdrawn, said Thursday it had no additional statement.
Ms. Suski, currently an associate dean at the University of South Carolina, issued a written statement on Thursday saying she was “disappointed and hurt by the university’s decision to rescind my contract.”
“I have been informed that the decision was not in any way a reflection of my qualifications to serve as dean,” she wrote, “but rather the result of influence from external individuals.”
Ms. Suski’s résumé includes work as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Va. Her teaching and legal expertise has been focused on health, poverty and education law, including Title IX, a federal civil rights law that bans sex-based discrimination in education programs.
The amicus brief that she signed along with 16 other legal scholars made a narrowly focused argument on the question of whether the sex assigned at birth should be the sole determining factor in decisions about which sports teams students can compete on.
The brief argued that the case before the Supreme Court should be sent back to the lower courts for further review.
A Democratic state representative in Arkansas, Nicole Clowney, said in a telephone interview that the offer to Ms. Suski was rescinded after a few state legislators and one executive-branch official became aware that Ms. Suski had signed the brief, and then threatened the university’s funding.
Ms. Clowney, who represents Fayetteville and teaches at the law school, said she saw the decision as a free-speech issue, and added that Ms. Suski was eminently qualified for the job.
The speaker of the state House of Representatives, Brian Evans, a Republican, issued a statement saying his office was not involved in the decision.
Ms. Suski had been offered a five-year contract with total annual compensation of $350,000, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
In its announcement Wednesday, the law school praised Ms. Suski, but said it had “decided to go in a different direction.”
Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
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