Message from Dean Revesz
W
elcome to the Autumn 2005 issue of The Law School magazine. I’m confident you will be impressed by all that has taken place on campus in the past year. I love coming to work each day, and feel grateful for the opportunity to help shape the present and future of this great institution.
The cover package on Law and Philosophy continues our tradition of taking an indepth tour along a particular corridor of our academic excellence. There is no question in my mind that we have the strongest legal philosophy program and faculty in the country—and after you read this fascinating suite of stories, I’m sure you’ll agree. Thanks in large part to the innovative Colloquium in Legal, Political and Social Philosophy conducted by professors Ronald Dworkin and Thomas Nagel since 1987, we have long been the standard-bearer in this area. The weekly fall colloquium draws leading philosophers of the day—eminent guests have included Justice Stephen Breyer, Jürgen Habermas, Amartya Sen and Seana Shiffrin. They present their latest scholarly works in progress, ready to be cheerfully skewered by Dworkin, Nagel and the other participants. We trace the development of this famous (and some might say fearsome) colloquium while also decoding the history of the formidable program and how it draws the most highly-regarded professors, in Group Think. (I owe special thanks to Professor Liam Murphy who helped the magazine’s staff navigate this rarified territory.) For a taste of the quality and rigor of the debates in these classrooms, be sure to read The Global Table; this roundtable discussion held last spring, and excerpted in these pages, found Thomas Nagel himself in the hot seat as a group of his colleagues scrutinized his latest paper. Finally, to get to know a man who perhaps is most closely identified with our legal philosophy program, don’t miss The Transcendent Lawyer, an engaging profile of Ronald Dworkin by Adam Liptak, the New York Times national legal correspondent. After hours of conversation with the erudite and articulate Dworkin, Liptak admits to feeling intimidated “by the force of a large, cogent and Richard complete mind.”
The rest of the magazine will fill you in on all that transpired last year. We’re especially proud to have hosted three Supreme Court justices—Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas. We also celebrated the Hauser Global Law School Program’s 10th anniversary during an incredible weekend with speakers including European Convention President (and former President of France) Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández. There’s still more good news. We welcome five new outstanding full-time faculty members: Oren Bar-Gill, Lily Batchelder, Stephen Choi, Daniel Hulsebosch and Samuel Issacharoff. Building a great fulltime faculty is the most important work that I do, and I am so pleased that 11 spectacular professors have joined the NYU School of Law since I became dean three years ago. The much-lauded publication of The Torture Papers meant that the Law School and its Center on Law and Security were major participants in the ongoing conversation about the appropriate treatment of detainees in the war on terror. The center also hosted another gathering of top-tier experts at Villa La Pietra in Italy, where ideas about effective counterterrorism strategies were exchanged. Faculty codirector and Professor Noah Feldman published What We Owe Iraq, and most recently, Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do About It, which was excerpted in the New York Times Magazine. You can see why I feel privileged to be in a position to encourage the flow of good will, intellectual energy and vibrant spirit that personifies this place. Our larger community of alumni, parents and friends deserves to share much of the credit with our students, faculty and administrators, and fortunately, there is plenty for all of us to celREvesz ebrate. Enjoy the issue!