NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) - A proposal before an American Bar Association panel that many say would weaken the long-established tenure system at law schools threatens both academic freedom and job security, an advocate for university professors argued before the association's standards review committee last weekend in Chicago.

In a statement on Nov. 11, the first day of a two-day meeting of the Standards Review Committee, Robert O'Neil, the general counsel of the American Association of University Professors, echoed the arguments of 71 law school faculties, groups and individuals that have filed resolutions this year opposing the change, which was drafted in January by the standards committee. The committee proposed an amended version of the change at a meeting in April.

The need for the protections offered by a tenure system is not "some ancient vestige of the dark days of McCarthyism," O'Neil told the committee. "It is real and present, and at times urgent." The AAUP receives three or four inquiries every day from "harassed or beleaguered teachers," he added. The ABA's current policy, which states that schools seeking accreditation have "an established and announced policy with respect to academic freedom and tenure," has generally been interpreted as requiring law schools to have a tenure system.

The proposal to drop the language regarding tenure, introduced by the 14-member standards committee, would leave decisions on employment policies to individual schools' discretion.

Another proposal would drop requirements of other job-security measures for clinical faculty members, who supervise students taking on actual legal cases.

'WORK IN PROGRESS'

But some committee members have argued that the ABA's accreditation standards never required tenure in the first place, which triggered a separate proposal to explicitly require accredited law schools to offer tenure, said Jeffrey Lewis, dean emeritus and professor of law at Saint Louis University School of Law who serves as the committee's chair.

In an interview, Michael Fitts, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and president of the American Law Deans Society, said the Society "has long supported greater flexibility for schools in fashioning their academic programs so they are better able to meet their students' needs."

A "requirement that all full-time faculty members at American law schools receive tenure would undermine the ability of schools to continue to innovate," Fitts said.

Other administrators have said the requirement makes legal education more costly and stifles law schools' ability to be flexible and grow or shrink the school as needed.

The standards review committee has not taken an official position on any of the proposed changes, said Lewis, the committee chair.

"This is very much a work in progress," Lewis said. "Is tenure a means to an end of academic freedom, or is it an end in itself? That's the discussion going on."

Lewis said he expects the committee to make its recommendations to the American Bar Association's section on legal education within the next year. That section's council would then debate and vote on any change.

THE 'QUOTA QUEEN'

While the proposals are drawing renewed attention to the status of tenure and other job-security measures, the idea of jettisoning the measures is not new. Beginning in 2006, the board of directors of the ALDS -- then known as the American Law Deans Association -- began a push to allow universities to determine their own employment practices.

"Terms and conditions of employment have no place in the [ABA accreditation] Standards and should be removed," said a 2008 letter issued by the board.

The proposal to drop the tenure language has been opposed by faculty resolutions at 57 law schools, including Georgetown University Law Center, Howard University School of Law, American University Washington College of Law and Rutgers University School of Law.

The resolutions -- many of which follow the same template -- contend that the changes would undermine the quality of legal education as well as "academic freedom in the legal academy." They add that changes would "undermine the movement to bring clinical law professors, legal writing professors and library directors into full membership in the academy."

In his speech Friday, O'Neil, of the professors' association, stressed that without the protections that tenure offers, professors will be less likely to express their views about controversial issues.

He cited Lani Guinier, who had been a member of the University of Pennsylvania law faculty when President Bill Clinton nominated her to be Assistant U.S. Attorney General in 1993. Clinton withdrew her nomination following controversy over comments she made in law review articles about the voting rights of minorities, which led some critics to dub her the "quota queen."

Despite the failed nomination, O'Neil pointed out, Guinier was able to return to her faculty position without a problem. Without the academic freedom provided by tenure, O'Neil said, "the Lani Guiniers ... of our profession ... are simply at unacceptable risk," O'Neil said. "Such venturesome colleagues [would be] inadequately assured against sanctions and reprisals."

The standards committee meets four times a year to review what rules qualifying schools must follow. The next meeting will take place January 14 and 15 in Washington, D.C.

(Reporting by Moira Herbst)

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(Adds new information about the proposals before the ABA committee)