After announcing he planned to accept a deanship at Pepperdine University, he was forced to backtrack.

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He will be succeeded in the deanship by Soumitra Dutta, currently a professor at INSEAD.

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Mr. Kagan resigned the deanship in April 1992, lobbing a parting bomb at the faculty that bucked his administration.

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After announcing 14 months ago that he planned to resign Aug. 1, 1997 as independent counsel to accept the dual deanship at Pepperdine, Starr quickly reversed himself, saying it would be wrong to leave the investigation before it was close to closure.

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