A Centennial History of Rutgers Law School in Newark: Opening a Thousand Doors

By Paul Tractenberg and John J. Farmer Jr.

Founded in 1908 as New Jersey Law School, Rutgers School of Law, Newark possesses a distinctive spirit of excellence, opportunity and innovation. From the beginning, the school welcomed women and the children of immigrants. For the past forty years, its student body has embraced racial, ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, literally changing the face of the legal profession. Rutgers Law has pioneered clinical legal education, instilled in its students a commitment to social justice and public service and counted numerous top scholars and practitioners among its faculty. Not infrequently in its first one hundred years, Rutgers Law has overcome societal, governmental and economic upheavals. Now, new challenges confront it. Distinguished professor of law Paul Tractenberg chronicles the first century and looks with optimism to the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: May 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781614231462

Book preview

A CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF

RUTGERS

LAW SCHOOL

IN NEWARK

A CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF

RUTGERS

LAW SCHOOL

IN NEWARK

OPENING A THOUSAND DOORS

PAUL TRACTENBERG

FOREWORD BY JOHN J. FARMER JR.

DEAN, RUTGERS SCHOOL OF LAW–NEWARK

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright © 2010 by Paul Tractenberg

All rights reserved

First published 2010

e-book edition 2011

ISBN 978.1.61423.146.2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tractenberg, Paul L., 1938-

A centennial history of Rutgers law school in Newark : opening a thousand doors / Paul

Tractenberg.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-822-4

1. Rutgers Law School (Newark, N.J.)––History. 2. Law––Study and teaching––New Jersey––

Newark––History. 3. Law schools––New Jersey––Newark––History. 4. Newark (New Jersey) I.

Title.

KF292.R87T73 2010

340.071’174932––dc22

2010011657

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

Foreword, by John J. Farmer Jr.

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. The Voices and Visions of Rutgers Law School

Chapter 2. The Early Years (1908–1946): From a Start-Up Proprietary School to the State University Law School

Chapter 3. The Tumultuous Middle Years (1947–1967): Rutgers Law Contends with Postwar Booms, Hot and Cold Wars and Urban Upheaval

Chapter 4. The Years of Transformation (1968–1977): From a Traditional White Male Commuter School to the People’s Electric Law School

Chapter 5. The Tumultuous Later Years (1978–2008): Hanging On to the Magic or Reverting to Tradition (The People’s Electric Law School Short-Circuited or Recharged)

Chapter 6. The Voices and Visions of Rutgers Law: Concluding the Centennial History

Chapter 7. The Next One Hundred Years of Rutgers Law (2009 and Beyond)

Appendix I. Rutgers Law’s Centennial Timeline

Appendix II. Rutgers Law’s Firsts

Appendix III. Rutgers Law’s Deans

Appendix IV. Rutgers Law’s Homes

Appendix V. Rutgers Law’s Prominent Former Faculty—A Selection

Appendix VI. Rutgers Law’s Prominent Alumni—A Selection

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

FOREWORD

As a newcomer not just to the deanship of Rutgers University School of Law–Newark but to academia generally, I am possibly the least qualified of any member of the faculty or administration to write the foreword to this impressive history. I have lived through none of the triumphs and travails that have shaped this school and so can add little to the tales of colorful characters and even more colorful debates that make this book by Paul Tractenberg and his Centennial Seminar students so riveting.

I can say, however, that to read this book is to understand the special place that Rutgers Law has occupied in New Jersey’s social, political and legal history. From the school’s earliest days, affording a largely immigrant population the opportunity for a legal education, through its recommitment to Newark in the wake of the riots of the 1960s and its pioneering of clinical legal education and opportunity for disadvantaged students, to the present day, Rutgers School of Law–Newark has upheld three principles: opportunity, excellence and impact. This book portrays in human terms the school’s commitment to those ideals and makes a persuasive case for the uniqueness of Rutgers Law’s historic mission.

Professor Tractenberg’s own career itself exemplifies the themes this book develops. Through his decades-long commitment to quality public education, he has helped to reshape the law in New Jersey and other states, has educated scores of law students and has had a real impact on the lives of thousands of schoolchildren. He is, in short, the perfect person to have undertaken this effort.

The fact that this book is a collaboration between a faculty member and his students also speaks volumes about the nature of the Rutgers Law experience, which at moments of crisis, transformation and triumph has involved just such collaborations for decades.

As the final chapter of the book makes clear, Rutgers School of Law–Newark enters its second century facing many challenges: how to secure its fiscal position; how to navigate a law school ratings system that either undervalues or fails entirely to consider factors that Rutgers has viewed as central to its mission; how to respond to the numerous calls for curricular reform; and how to enable its graduates to prosper in one of the most difficult job markets since the school was founded. Although it is impossible to predict how these challenges and others will be met, I am committed to meeting them with the spirit of opportunity, excellence and impact that has defined this great school throughout its history. This book is the best illustration of the adage that the past is, indeed, prologue. We will be, as we have been, electric!

John J. Farmer Jr.

April 1, 2010

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first and foremost acknowledgment must go to the twelve law students who participated in the special Centennial Seminar I taught during academic year 2008–9. In alphabetical order, they are Heidi Alexander, Joseph Anderson, Lawrence Bellinger, Gerald Browning, Daniel Cresci (whose tragic death in March 2010 shocked and saddened all of us who knew and worked with him), Marco Franco, Steven Kroll, Shera Morgan, Tiffany Riley, Daniel Schoenberg, Dante Simone and Jonathan Stead.

This book was their idea, and their draft chapters got the ball rolling. To our delight, The History Press agreed to publish the book, and commissioning editors Kate Pluhar, Saunders Robinson and Whitney Tarella were pleasant, helpful and patient throughout a process that was longer than we expected.

Not only did my students decide that a book was feasible, but they also collaborated on two major Centennial year events—the seminar’s October 20, 2008 four-hour-long program celebrating the law school’s enormously important commitment to diversifying legal education and the legal profession and the afternoon session of the Rutgers Law Review’s April 17, 2009 symposium on innovations in legal education, focusing on Rutgers Law’s equally important commitment to instilling in all of its students public interest and public service values. Heidi Alexander, a seminar member and editor in chief of the Law Review, played an especially important role in both programs.

Two other members of the seminar deserve special acknowledgment. Jerry Browning and Marco Franco remained active partners in the completion of this book even though they both graduated from the law school in May 2009, took their bar exams and are employed in legal jobs. This book would not have happened without their commitment and talent.

Another important partner in this enterprise has been my research assistant, Tim Kozicki, ’10. For Tim, this has been a labor of love. He stepped forward to do anything and everything required.

To one of our most distinguished alumni, Elizabeth Warren, ’76, we owe the book’s title. In commenting on what Rutgers Law meant to her for a recent profile, she said that it took a little kid from Oklahoma and kicked open a thousand doors for me.¹

Many of my friends and colleagues at the law school have played important roles not only in providing information (sometimes arcane) to fill in gaps in the book but also in providing ideas and sharing reactions. Of special help have been Associate Dean and Director of the Law Library Carol Roehrenbeck; reference librarians Paul Axel-Lute and Susan Lyons; Associate Dean Fran Bouchoux; Assistant Dean Anita Walton; Manager of Public Relations Janet Donohue; alumni liaison Zahara Wadud-Pinkett; the dean’s secretary, Mimi Moore; Professor and Director of Clinical Programs Jon Dubin; Professors George Thomas, Gary Francione, Frank Askin and Jonathan Hyman; and support staff members Elvirra Gallashaw and Mayra Caraballo (also my secretary). Professor Thomas deserves special kudos for reading the entire manuscript and providing some excellent suggestions.

The Law Library, in particular, has also made an enormous contribution to the school’s celebration of its Centennial through its website and related activities, and I am very pleased that that website is being augmented with a section on this book. It will include a discussion board where readers and others can share their reactions to this book. Those interested can access it at http://lawwiki.rutgers.edu/100years.

Dean John Farmer graciously provided a foreword and former dean Peter Simmons submitted a long and fascinating personal reflection. Unfortunately, because of the publisher’s length limitation, only Simmons’s concluding paragraph could be included.

Naïvely, I entered into this project thinking that my role would be to conduct a light edit of the seminar students’ submissions and to write a brief introduction and conclusion. It turned out, perhaps predictably, to involve far more intensive involvement on my part than I expected. Any errors, omissions or debatable statements, thus, are surely my responsibility.

My heavy involvement in revising student drafts and in writing far more of the text than I had planned to do meant that I have spent a good part of the past nine months on this book, including the magical month I spent during the summer of 2009 as a resident fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center overlooking Lake Como in the north of Italy. I thank and acknowledge both the Rockefeller Foundation and the amazingly supportive staff of the Bellagio Center. A copy of this book will wind up in the Bellagio Center’s library bearing the blue dot signifying books written in part on-site.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the wonderful, dedicated and sometimes eccentric folks who have made one hundred years of Rutgers Law a success and delight for those of us fortunate enough to have had our professional and personal lives touched by this special place.

CHAPTER 1

THE VOICES AND VISIONS OF RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL

Rutgers School of Law–Newark reflects the history of both the city of Newark and the broader society. The school also reflects the longstanding tension in American legal education between preparing students for the practice of law and encouraging its faculty and students to think deeply, and sometimes theoretically, about the law. The pejoratives trade school and university-based law school capture the extremes of that tension.

The law school has a long history of opening its doors to working people and their children and, for more than forty years, meeting the needs of the underserved in the community and giving opportunities to those traditionally excluded from legal education and the profession. In more recent years, it has struggled to accommodate both a desire to continue to serve those nontraditional law students and a desire to be ranked as a top-tier school.

The challenge has been heightened by the growing financial crisis that has confronted the state of New Jersey and the nation. A relatively modest operating budget makes it ever more difficult for the law school to be a pluralistic institution effectively serving the needs of diverse students, faculty, alumni and other constituents.

This book explores the law school’s triumphs and challenges throughout its one-hundred-year history. Though race, gender and socioeconomic status figure prominently in the Rutgers Law story—as does the quest for social justice—this book addresses a far wider range. The well-known work of previous chroniclers, who told the riveting stories of the People’s Electric Law School of the ’60s and ’70s, figures prominently, but by then the school had been around for six decades. In its earlier years, it had faced and overcome many trying times and had experienced notable successes. Although they are less well known, many of the stories of those times are the stuff of legend. The school’s founders and earlier leaders, faculty and students helped to build it up not only to survive war and economic hardship but also to thrive as it adapted to meet the challenges of civil unrest, poverty and social injustice. Throughout its history, faculty and students at Rutgers Law School have dealt with the issues of their day while continuing to engage in a program of legal education designed to expand their breadth of vision, thoughtful understanding of theory and doctrine and practical experience.

This book presents Rutgers Law’s history in four chapters, each sketching out an epoch.

Chapter 2 traces the period from the school’s founding as New Jersey Law School in 1908 until it was absorbed into Rutgers, the state university, in 1946 and became Rutgers School of Law–Newark (Rutgers Law). In the interim, there was a merger with a competitor, Mercer Beasley Law School, and the incorporation of the merged school into the University of Newark.

Chapter 3 deals with the period between 1947 and 1967, during which the school was buffeted by war and revolution: on the international level, the aftermath of World War II, the Korean War, the earlier years of the Vietnam War and, overhanging most of this period, the Cold War; and on the national, state and local levels, the riots or uprisings in many American cities, including the law school’s home city of Newark.

Chapter 4 focuses on Rutgers Law’s transformation between 1968 and 1977. The aftermath of the 1967 turmoil in Newark and other cities across the country led to the establishment at the school of three distinctive and continuing cornerstones—a serious commitment to a diverse student body and faculty, with an initial focus on race and socioeconomic status expanding to ethnicity and gender; the establishment of an array of law school clinical programs and other curricular innovations, including required first-year courses in Legal Representation of the Poor and International Law and Just World Order; and a growing commitment to engaging students in public interest law and in landmark federal and state cases designed to advance social justice. These augmented the school’s more traditional and scholarly missions.

Chapter 5 traces Rutgers Law’s evolution during the last three decades of its first one hundred years, from 1978 to 2008. The three distinctive cornerstones established in the previous decade remained prominent and, for the most part, coexisted peacefully with the school’s other missions in a pluralistic environment. However, there was an assortment of challenges, even crises, that threatened the balance. Several were frontal challenges to the Minority Student Program, widely known as the MSP. But there was also the powerful and more general impact of U.S. News & World Report’s law school rankings since 1994 and the more recent economic tsunami of 2009–2010 that has devastated government at every level, thereby undermining support of public higher education.

Chapter 6 completes the book’s treatment of the Centennial, as it begins in this introductory chapter, with the voices and visions of Rutgers Law. In Chapter 6, though, those voices speak more directly and individually, through vignette, anecdote, sadness, humor and tribute and even sometimes through recognizing individual and collective foibles. By doing so, they capture the school’s heart and soul.

Chapter 7 is more forward-looking, an epilogue to the Centennial history. It takes stock of where Rutgers Law is in 2009 and then considers where the law school should go during its second one hundred years. In particular, it discusses the extent to which the law school can adapt, yet again, to new directions and new pressures while retaining the best aspects of its first one hundred years.

The voices and visions of the school, presented in this book in text and photograph, come from many sources. They include histories of the law school, the University of Newark and legal education in New Jersey; archival and other material about the school, its deans, its faculty, its students and its alumni; law school yearbooks from 1927 forward; and books, law review symposia and special events celebrating key