The O. W. Coburn School of Law was the law school of

Oral Roberts University Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private evangelical university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1963, the university is named after its founder, evangelist Oral Roberts. Sitting on a campus, ORU offers over 70 undergraduate degree programs ...

. The school was named after donor Orin Wesley Coburn, the founder of Coburn Optical Industries and the father of future US politician

Tom Coburn Thomas Allen Coburn (March 14, 1948 – March 28, 2020) was an American politician and physician who served as a United States senator for Oklahoma from 2005, until his resignation in 2015. A Republican, he previously served as a United St ...

. The school opened in 1979. Its founding dean was Charles Kothe, a

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

labor attorney. Other professors included

Anita Hill Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university's Heller School for Social Policy and ...

John Eidsmoe John A. Eidsmoe is an American attorney and professor of Law emeritus. He has previously taught at the Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, Faulkner University, Montgomery, Alabama, the O. W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University and Oak B ...

, Gary Lane, Herb Titus, and

Rutherford Institute The Rutherford Institute is a conservative Christian public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of civil liberties, human rights, and religious liberties. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the non-profit organization's motto is "its ...

founder John W. Whitehead. In 1986, the school closed, with its 190,000 volume law library, as well as 5 professors and 23 students, moving to CBN University (now

Regent University Regent University is a private Christian university in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The university was founded by Pat Robertson in 1977 as Christian Broadcasting Network University, and changed its name to Regent University in 1990. Regent offers ...

). Since the new CBN law school would not initially be accredited (and in fact did not receive provisional accreditation until 1989), students graduating in spring 1987 were allowed to state they graduated from Coburn, in order to be listed as graduating from an accredited school. U.S. Representative

Michele Bachmann Michele Marie Bachmann (; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

began attending Coburn the first year it opened, and graduated as part of its last class.

Accreditation controversy

In May 1981, the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

(ABA), which provides accreditation for US law schools, denied Coburn's initial application for provisional accreditation. Oral Roberts University's requirement that students must take an oath of religious faith was considered to be contrary to ABA's Standard 211, which states: The school sued the ABA, claiming that the denial was a violation of their First Amendment rights. A judge enjoined the ABA from denying provisional accreditation, ruling that the ABA's role in accreditation is equivalent to a "state action," and that Standard 211 denied a private institution's right to freedom of religion without any restrictions by the state. After a "spirited debate," the ABA's House of Delegates in August 1981 voted 147 to 127 to amend Standard 211 to add a clause including the phrase: Coburn was then granted provisional accreditation.

References

External links

The Regent University Law Library: The First Thirty Years
��Contains material on Coburn's establishment, history, and dissolution {{authority control Educational institutions established in 1979 Educational institutions disestablished in 1986 Law schools in Oklahoma Defunct private universities and colleges in Oklahoma 1979 establishments in Oklahoma 1986 disestablishments in Oklahoma Defunct law schools