08 Jan (International) Law Deans
As most of you no doubt already know, David Wippman has been named dean at the University of Minnesota Law School. David is richly qualified for the position, with a strong background as both a scholar and an administrator. The question here is, how does the international law background of a decanal candidate play these days, relative to earlier times?
The answer has to be, a lot better. I haven’t been around that long, but I can’t think of a single international law specialist who served as a law school dean in the bad old days of the field’s marginalization (corrections on that welcome). Claudio Grossman, who became dean at American in 1995, would have been among the first, and now of course we have Harold Koh at the helm at Yale. More recent additions include Fred Aman (Suffolk), Hiram Chadosh (Utah), Nora Demleitner (Hofstra), and Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker (McGeorge). I suspect there will be more in the future. As law schools rush to globalize, an IL background starts to look like a big plus.
Update: In addition to the others noted in the comments (Janet Levit and Makau Mutua as interim deans at Tulsa and Buffalo respectively; and Thomas Burgenthal at American in the early 80s), another reader reminds me of Eugene Rostow, dean at Yale from 1955 to 1965, and David Leebron, who was dean at Columbia from 1996 to 2004 before becoming president of Rice University. So IL interests haven’t been a disqualifier in the past. But I still have to think that the background is a useful credential for today’s deaning in a way that it has never been before.
I would add Janet Levit, serving as interim dean at Tulsa, to the growing list of interational law specialists leading their law schools.
Actually, Claudio was preceded by Thomas Buergenthal as Dean at American from 1980-1985.
And Makau Mutua, interim Dean at Buffalo.
Fred Aman also has been Dean of IU School of Law in the time for more than ten years (1991-2002).