Blackstone's Tower: The English Law School - College of Social ...

Law in the Universities: The Historical Context
fied by the end of the quinquennial system, the decline and death
of the University Grants Committee, the Education Act of 1988,
and the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992. In Decline of
Donnish Dominion A. H. Halsey documents trends in the British
academic profession from 1970 to 1988: in this period funding,
salaries, research facilities, staff-student ratios, public respect, and
almost every dimension of professional status of academics all
deteriorated. 58 The euphoria of the fifties and sixties gradually
degenerated into a major crisis of morale. 59 Students fared no
better.
Adaptation and change are often painful. No doubt some of this
account describes the almost inevitable costs of a move away from
an elite system in a time of economic difficulties. Much of it is
reflected in broad international trends. During the Thatcher years
the nature of the process was often obscured by an atmosphere of
mutual hostility and distrust between the academic community and
government. At the time of writing the process is continuing and
the atmosphere has not improved.
Nevertheless, the story of higher education after 1970 is not one
of unremitting gloom: the policy of expanding the system had general
support; most academics maintain that in the event more did
not inevitably mean worse 60 ; the gender ratio improved dramatically,
as did the proportion of mature students entering higher education;
serious efforts were made to improve access, with mixed
success; the post-Robbins euphoria extended well into the seventies
and beyond as new and old institutions experimented with different
patterns and fresh ideas; the polytechnics proved to be more
flexible and adventurous than some of the older universities and
introduced further diversity into the system; the extensive network
of contacts between universities in the English-speaking world continued
in the post-colonial period; and membership of the European
Community further expanded horizons. Universities are extraordinarily
robust and adaptable institutions. On a broad view we
are still in the process of change to a new system which has
retained at least some of the strengths of the past.
For most practical purposes university and polytechnic law
schools between 1970 and 1993 were treated as an integral part
of the higher education system by successive governments and by
educational administrators. Law departments generally were
treated much like other non-science departments in respect of most
matters to do with their terms and conditions of employment and
general university policy, finance and infrastructure. 61 So far as
public policy and general culture are concerned they continued to
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