BU Law History at a Glance Brochure 2010

BU Law History at a Glance

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Welcome to Boston University School of Law, a top-tier law school with a rich tradition of inclusion and accomplishment. Boston University was chartered in 1869 by three successful Methodist businessmen, whose abolitionist ideals led them to envision and create a university that was inclusive, opening its doors to the world. In keeping with those ideals, BU Law has admitted qualified students regardless of race, gender or religion since the day we opened our doors in 1872. As a result, many of our alumni have been pioneers in law and society, making history with their accomplishments.

Today, BU Law is a dynamic community of students, faculty, staff and alumni united in the pursuit of excellence. There is a collaborative spirit here in the Tower that permeates classes, clinics, journals and student organizations. Students say they appreciate the opportunity to learn in a challenging yet collegial atmosphere.

BU Law has always thrived as an urban school with convenient access to all the resources a major city has to offer— federal and state courts, the Massachusetts legislature, non-governmental organizations, corporations, law firms of all sizes, cultural and historical offerings, major sporting events, and other civic and social opportunities.

We invite you to learn some of the history and traditions of the BU Law community in the following pages.

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Law School Timeline 1869

Did You Know?

1897

collaborations in the United States. The

Boston University was

After a few temporary

chartered by three

locations, the School moved

businessmen—Isaac

to 11 Ashburton Place.

Rich, Lee Claflin and

Justice Oliver Wendell

Institute recognized the emerging field of health law, and was the foundation for today’s innovative Health Law Program.

1959

Jacob Sleeper—beginning with a single

Holmes Jr. delivered his landmark speech,

department, the School of Theology. Today

“The Path of the Law,” at the dedication of

Boston University is a diverse, culturally

the new building. His speech shocked many

England to offer a Master of Laws in

rich, nonsectarian university that draws

by offering the view that the law was just

Taxation Program. It was the second law

students from all 50 states, with one of the

a business, predicting what the next court

school in the country to offer this program.

largest international student populations

will decide in the next case. He suggested

among all American universities.

that a contract was just an option either to perform or to pay damages, and noted that

1872 Only a quarter of those becoming lawyers attended any law school, because most

a “bad man” does not care about ethics or lofty ideals—rather, the “bad man” simply wants to know what will keep him out of

BU Law was the first law school in New

1962 The School launched its first clinical program, the Voluntary Defenders Program, and was one of the first law schools to staff

jail or allow him to avoid paying damages.

its clinical programs with full-time faculty.

1921

as the Boston Legal Assistance Project, and

became BU’s second school. It introduced the first three-year sequenced curriculum

The Boston University Law Review was

student prosecutors handled misdemeanor

as well as entrance requirements to legal

established, providing analysis and

and felony cases under faculty supervision.

education. Unlike most schools, BU Law

commentary on all areas of the law. Its first

Today students have a wide range of

accepted women and people of all races

issue began with a foreword by Melville

clinical options.

and religious beliefs.

Madison Bigelow, a founding faculty

lawyers at this time learned their trade through apprenticeship. The law school

The law school initially was located downtown at 36 Bromfield Street. Tuition in 1872 was $100 for the first year, $50 for the second year and free the third year. Early courses of instruction included Wills, Equity, Probate & Insolvency, Real Property, Practice & Evidence, Conflict of Laws, Medical Jurisprudence, Practice & Pleading, and United States Courts.

BU Law, and included an article on “The

1964

Nathan Abbott (1881) was the founding dean of Stanford Law School. In 1897, three BU Law graduates gave law lectures at the Boston YMCA, starting what became Northeastern Law School. In 1906 Gleason Archer (1906) started a night law school in his Roxbury apartment, which he later moved downtown to create the all-male Suffolk Law. He talked his BU Law roommate Arthur MacLean (1906) into starting the all-female Portia Law School in 1908 (later named New England Law), and the two schools held debates over which gender made the better lawyer. Takeo Kikuchi (1877), the School’s first Japanese graduate, in 1885 became co-founder and president of Tokyo’s English Law School, which grew into Chuo University.

Inspiration for Wonder Woman WONDER WOMAN ™ and © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Evolution of a World Court” by a leading

The School relocated

Elizabeth “Sadie” Holloway Marston (‘18)

international lawyer.

to the law tower at 765

collaborated with her husband, William Moulton Marston, on the development of the polygraph. William also created the comic book character Wonder Woman, using Elizabeth as his inspiration. If you recall, Wonder Woman’s unbreakable lasso forces those ensnared by it to tell the truth—a polygraph of sorts.

Commonwealth Avenue.

1958

Designed by Spanish BU established the Law-Medicine Research Institute, one of the first medical-legal institutional

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It later added a civil litigation clinic, known the Student Prosecutor Program, in which

member who taught almost 50 years at

Many law schools owe their start to BU Law alums

architect Josep Lluís Sert, the tower is a leading example of Brutalist architecture, and the campus’ first “high-rise” building.

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Did You Know?

Alumni won record verdict in wrongful conviction case

1966

the past, developed my own course materials

BU Law was one of the first law schools to actively recruit female students by traveling to women’s colleges in the New England region. Today, women make up approximately 50 percent of law school classes.

and taught students how the law interacted with the economics of health care delivery.

The rest of the world caught up with the concept later.”

Four men spent decades behind bars for a crime the F.B.I. knew they didn’t commit. In 2007, alumni Victor Garo (’65), Austin J. McGuigan (’72), Joseph Burns (BU ’82) and Dan Deutsch (’86) won a landmark civil suit in which the federal government was ordered to pay a record $101.7 million for the wrongful convictions of Joseph Salvati, Peter Limone, Louis Greco and Henry Tameleo. WBZ-TV reporter Dan Rea (’74) was also key in uncovering the truth and keeping the case in the spotlight. For his 30 years of pro bono legal aid to Salvati, which included freeing him from prison, Garo received the Edmund S. Muskie Pro Bono Service Award in 2008. BU Law established the Victor J. Garo Public Service Award in his honor.

Alumni Awards to distinguished alumni and friends in recognition of “notable contributions to the legal profession, leadership within the community, unfailing service to BU Law, and superlative contributions to society.”

1968

1975

became the first woman faculty member at BU Law. She writes and teaches in the areas of mutual funds, securitization, financial system regulation, fiduciary law and corporate governance.

A battle against human trafficking Edward Kelly (‘91), an attorney at LaRiviere Grubman & Payne, LLP and human rights activist, received the 2009 Victor J. Garo Public Service Award for his work to suppress trafficking and counterfeiting operations with South East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities (SISHA), dedicated to the suppression of human trafficking in Asia.

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1971

was founded to conduct specialized research

1978 Students founded the BU

specializes in medical/legal topics,

Gay and Lesbian Legal

exploring both traditional health law issues

Association. Now known

and less conventional issues such as bioethics. Today, it is the country’s highestranked health law journal, according to a Washington and Lee study.

1975

as OutLaw, the group also includes bisexual and transgender students.

1980 The Boston University International Law

BU Law and School of Professor Tamar Frankel

named in honor of Charles H. Morin (’49),

of banking and financial institutions.

published its first issue. The journal

BU Law presented the first Silver Shingle

The Morin Center for Banking Law Studies,

and provide educational programs in the field

The American Journal of Law & Medicine

1967

1978

Public Health Professor George Annas, often called the “father of patient rights,” published the first book on the

Journal was established.

1982 The Review of Banking & Financial Law published its first issue.

subject, The Rights of Hospital Patients.

The book, currently in its third edition, offers fully documented exposition and explanation of the rights of patients from birth to death. In 1978, Professor Annas organized the country’s first Health Law

BU Law Professor Frances Miller (’65)

Professors Conference, bringing together

reshaped the way health law was taught,

professors who taught health law in

focusing on health care organization,

medical schools, law schools and schools

finance and delivery rather than forensics

of public health. This tradition continues

and medical malpractice. “I knew back then

today with the annual conference rotating

health law was a much broader subject than

among various schools.

1984 The Public Interest Project (PIP), a BU Law student organization, started raising funds to provide fellowships to first- and second-year students working in unpaid summer public-interest jobs. Its primary fundraising event is the annual PIP Auction, one of the most popular events in the School calendar.

‘doctors in the courtroom’. So I broke with

Law School Timeline

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1984

Late 1990s

BU Law launched the LL.M. Program in

The J.D. entering class size was reduced from

Banking & Financial Law, the first graduate

more than 400 to approximately 265 while

program in the United States to devote

the full roster of faculty was retained, creating

itself entirely to the study of banking and

a lower student-professor ratio and offering

financial services law.

students a richer educational experience.

1990

2000

The Public Interest Law Journal was founded.

Professor Stanley Fisher helped launch the New

1992

England Innocence Project The Study Abroad Program began with programs in Tel Aviv, Israel and Lyon, France. Today students can

study in Argentina, China, England, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland.

1995 The LL.M. in American Law Program was launched to provide foreign-trained lawyers with a basic grounding in American law and the U.S. legal system by integrating them into the J.D. curriculum.

1995 The Journal of Science & Technology Law was first published.

(NEIP), which provides pro bono legal assistance to inmates challenging their wrongful convictions. In the past 10 years, NEIP has freed more than a dozen innocent inmates.

IBM, and her primary academic interests are in intellectual property and commercial law. Dean O’Rourke co-authored one of the leading copyright casebooks, Copyright in a Global Information Economy, and is a recipient of the Metcalf Award, Boston University’s highest teaching honor.

2005 After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated parts of New Orleans, BU Law took in 18 students from Tulane University free of charge. During the ongoing recovery, many BU Law students spent their spring break in New Orleans doing pro bono work in conjunction with local nonprofits, assisting hurricane

2002

Did You Know?

survivors. In 2010, students will work

The Intellectual Property Law LL.M.

locally as well as in Michigan, Texas,

Program was launched, accepting both

Vermont and Cambodia on various pro

domestic and international lawyers who

bono projects. The motto of BU Law’s Pro

wish to take advantage of the School’s

Bono Program comes from Gandhi: “Be the

extraordinary strength in intellectual

change you want to see in the world.”

property teaching.

2004

Pro football player attends BU Law in the offseason Alan “The Horse” Miller (’65) enrolled in BU Law in 1959. When the American Football League was launched in 1960, the Boston Patriots drafted Miller, a star football player in college.

He was a leading rusher and second leading pass receiver for the Patriots and, following a trade to the Oakland Raiders, was on the 1961 AFL All-Star Team, served as Raiders captain from 1963-1965, and 1965 MVP. He attended BU Law classes in the off-season, was an editor for the BU Law Review and graduated number two in his class. He continued to play for the Raiders while working for a prominent Milwaukee firm until he retired from football at age 28. He was elected general counsel to the National Football League Players Association, served as legal counsel to the World Football League Players Association, worked for NBC-TV as an NFL color commentator and was a successful amateur racecar driver. He also represents professional athletes and racecar drivers.

World of Warcraft creator working on new game

Maureen A. O’Rourke became the first woman leader of BU Law, serving as acting dean for two years

Mark Kern (‘95) is one of the creators (and team lead) of the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, one of the most popular online games in the world today. He is working on a new online multiplayer game as the chairman and chief creative officer of Red 5 Studios.

prior to accepting the post of Dean of the School of Law in 2006. She joined the School’s faculty in 1993 after working at

Law School Timeline

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Did You Know?

Father and son share connection to BU Law Professor Keith Hylton shares a connection to the School with his father, Kenneth N. Hylton.

Kenneth Hylton enrolled at BU Law in 1950 after encountering discriminatory entrance policies at his home state school, the University of Virginia (which at the time had a separate institution for black students). The senior Hylton graduated from BU Law in 1952 and continues to practice law in Detroit. Professor Keith Hylton, who earned a J.D. from Harvard Law and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, joined the BU Law faculty in 1995 after teaching for six years and receiving tenure at Northwestern University School of Law. In 2008, he was named the Honorable Paul J. Liacos Professor of Law at BU in recognition of his distinguished contributions to legal scholarship in the fields of antitrust, tort and labor law.

Sampling of Alumni Who Made History While there are too many illustrious BU Law graduates to list here, the following alumni give a sense of the accomplishments of our community members.

Lelia Robinson Johnson Lelia Robinson Johnson (1881) was the first woman graduate of BU Law. After she was denied admission to the Mass. Bar, she persuaded bill allowing women to be admitted. She became the first woman admitted to practice law in Mass. “The woman lawyer in the abstract has not yet attained her majority. The novelty of her very existence has scarcely begun to wear off, and the newspapers publish and republish little floating items about women lawyers along with those of the latest sea-serpent, the popular idea seeming to be that the one is

Emanuel Hewlett Emanuel Hewlett (1877), the School’s first black graduate and a leading criminal attorney of his time, argued the Shipp case

Laura J. Maechtlen (2002) is immediate past president of the National Lesbian and Gay Bar Association Board of Directors, having served as President from 2008 through 2010. She is a partner in the Labor and Employment Department at Seyfarth Shaw LLP in San Francisco.

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(1906), the first and only criminal trial at the U.S. Supreme Court. When he died in 1929, the U.S. Supreme Court adjourned for the day, an honor reserved for the most respected members of the bar.

Joseph F. Quinn

Takeo Kikuchi (1877), the

Joseph F. Quinn (1886), who had to go to

School’s first Japanese

Canada for his undergraduate degree due

graduate, was co-founder

to U.S. discrimination against the Irish,

and president of Tokyo’s

was welcomed at BU Law. The first Irish-

English Law School, which grew into

American appointed to the Mass. bench,

Chuo University.

he presided over the 1912 murder trial of the Lawrence textile “Bread and Roses

the legislature to pass—unanimously—a

about as real as the other.”

Alum heads LGBT bar association

Takeo Kikuchi

Butler Roland Wilson Butler Roland Wilson (LLB 1883) was admitted to the American Bar Association

Strike” leaders.

Edwin B. Jourdain

in 1911. But when the ABA found out

Edwin B. Jourdain (1888)

that he and two other men were black,

was one of the “original

it tried to expel the three, only to be

twenty-nine” who attended

met with membership protest. The ABA

the organizational meeting

subsequently required applicants to make

of the Niagara Movement, a black civil

known their race on applications until 1943.

rights group founded in 1905. It was named

Many black lawyers in response created

for the “mighty current” of change the

their own bar organization, The National

group wanted to effect and for Niagara

Bar Association. Wilson was a civil rights

Falls, which was near the place where

attorney, editor of the black newspaper The

the group met. After graduating from BU

Hub, and branch president of the Boston

Law, Jourdain opened law offices in New

chapter of the National Association for the

Bedford and balanced a legal career with

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

an increasingly public career advocating for civil rights. He was a prominent member of a thriving community of color that had been living in New Bedford for decades. His home on Arnold Street became a critical gathering place to discuss civil rights issues,

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and it became known as “the New Bedford Annex for Boston Radicals.” Members of the Niagara Movement later helped form the NAACP.

Anna Christy Fall Anna Christy Fall (1891) was the first woman to try a case before a jury in Mass. She won the case and her client was awarded $700. In 1898, she wrote The Tragedy of a Widow’s Third, which helped pass a 1902 state law putting wives on equal footing with their husbands in case either died without a will. Her daughter, Emma Fall Schofield (1908), became the first female assistant attorney general in Mass. In 1930, Schofield

Clifton R. Wharton Sr. Clara Burrill Bruce Clifton R. Wharton Sr.

Clara Burrill Bruce (‘26)

(’20, ‘23) became the first

was the first black woman

black diplomat to become

elected to join a law review,

an ambassador by rising

woman to be elected editor-in-chief of a

rather than by political appointment, as

law review, the Boston University Law Review.

U.S. minister to Romania. He also became

(More than half a century later, in 1990

the first black Foreign Service Officer to

Harvard named its first black person to lead

become chief of a diplomatic mission,

the Harvard Law Review: Barack Obama.)

and simultaneously the first black chief

She graduated at the top of her class, and

of a diplomatic mission to a European

was the second black woman to pass the

nation. Wharton went on to be vice consul

Massachusetts Bar.

in Monrovia, consul in Las Palmas, and commemorated on a stamp in the U.S.

simultaneously the state’s first two women appointed to the bench.

Thomas E. Burke

Edward Brooke III

Postal Service’s Distinguished American

Edward Brooke III (’48,

Diplomats series.

’49) became the first black person elected

and Sadie Lipner Shulman (1911) were

Consuelo Northrop Bailey Consuelo Northrop Bailey (’25) was the first female

Thomas E. Burke (1896)

lieutenant governor in the

took a leave of absence

United States, first Vermont

from school to compete

woman admitted to practice before the

in Athens at the first

U.S. Supreme Court, first woman State’s

Olympic competition held since 393

Attorney in Vermont, and first woman to try

A.D. He was BU Law’s first Olympic star

(and win) a murder case in Vermont (1929).

Alum named Time Man of the Year

and was the first black

through the ranks of the Foreign Service

ambassador to Norway. Wharton was

Did You Know?

Attorney General, in Mass., and elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote. Winning re-election, he served in the Senate from 1967 to 1979. As AG, he gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime,

Owen D. Young (1896) was determined to be a lawyer despite his parents’ wishes that he enter the ministry, but he needed tuition money. He was prohibited by Harvard Law School from doing part-time work, but BU admitted him and gave him a job in the law library. By tutoring classmates, borrowing, and setting up a bill collection service, Young graduated—early and with honors. He worked for General Electric as a lawyer; later, as president and chairman, he shifted GE to home appliances, and sped the mass electrification of U.S. farms, factories and transportation systems. He created the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to combat threatened foreign control of America’s struggling radio industry, and helped found the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). As an international diplomat, he was Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” in 1929. Young helped found a state university system in New York, and lost the Democratic Presidential nomination to Franklin Roosevelt. He also was a BU Law professor.

and worked on the Boston Strangler case.

Brooke received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 and the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2009.

Unraveling history’s biggest Ponzi scheme

and the first Olympic athlete to win two championships—the 100- and 400-meter running events. He later helped found the first Boston Marathon in 1897.

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Irving Picard (’66) is the trustee of the estate of Bernard Madoff, who ran the largest Ponzi scheme of all time. Picard is attempting to recover as much as he can of the funds from the investment scandal to give to Madoff’s victims, many of whom were left penniless.

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Did You Know?

Peter A. Aduja Peter A. Aduja (’51), the

Media moguls

first Filipino American elected to U.S. public office, claimed a seat in the Territorial House of Representatives, and later served three terms when Hawaii was granted statehood. The Hawaiian

Shari Redstone (J.D. ’78, LL.M ’80) is president and 20% owner of National Amusements, a privately held media and entertainment company which has controlling ownership of both CBS and Viacom. This entertainment empire includes assets such as MTV, VH1, BET, Nickelodeon, Showtime, Comedy Central, Paramount Studios, Blockbuster, Simon & Schuster, Paramount Theme Park, and many others. Redstone serves as vice chairman of both CBS Corporation and Viacom. (Michael Fricklas (’84) is executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of Viacom.)

government proclaimed March 29, 2007, “Peter A. Aduja Day.”

evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred.”

Robert T. Belton Robert T. Belton (’65) was a Vanderbilt law professor and prominent civil rights attorney who served as assistant counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and

Juan R. Torruella Juan R. Torruella (’57) became the first Latino to serve as chief judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Judith Nelson Dilday Judith Nelson Dilday (’74) was the first black circuit judge for the Mass.

Probate and Family Court.

Her husband, James Dilday (’72), was president of the Mass. Black Lawyers Association, the Mass. Bar Association and the New England Bar Association.

Educational Fund, and was a partner in one of the first racially integrated law firms in the South.

Gary F. Locke Gary F. Locke (’75) became

Sandra L. Lynch Sandra L. Lynch (’71), a former Law Review editor, was the first woman to

the first Asian American governor of Washington State and the first Asian American to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

clerk for a federal judge

Barbara Jordan Barbara Jordan (’59) was elected to the Texas Senate in 1966, the first black state senator since 1883 and the first black woman senator

David Zaslav (’85) is president and CEO of Discovery Communications, which features the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and Planet Green, along with the new Oprah Winfrey Network.

my presence here is one additional bit of

in Texas. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972, and in 1976 was the first woman to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. She was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In her keynote speech she said, “I feel that notwithstanding the past that

in Rhode Island; in 1995 she became the first woman appointed to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and to serve as chief judge of that court. She also served as an assistant attorney general of the Commonwealth of Mass., and as General Counsel to the Mass. Department of Education. She was the first woman to head the litigation department at the Boston law firm Foley, Hoag & Eliot, and was president of the Boston Bar Association.

Carolyn Berger Carolyn Berger (’76) became the first woman justice of the Delaware Supreme Court.

Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson (’76) is the first black person and the second woman appointed to the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She was the first black woman

Sampling of Alumni Who Made History

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appointed associate justice for the Rhode Island Superior Court, and the first black

Judge Maria Lopez

woman to serve on the R.I. District Court.

Philip S. Beck Philip S. Beck (’76), a founding partner of the

Shannon O’Brien

Judge Maria Lopez (’78)

Shannon O’Brien (’85) was

was the first Latina

the first woman elected as

appointed to the Mass.

treasurer of Mass. She was

Superior Court. Lopez later

a state representative and

hosted her own syndicated courtroom

senator, and narrowly lost her 2002 bid

show, “Judge Maria Lopez.”

for governor.

Martha Coakley

Niki Tsongas

Chicago firm Barlitt, Beck, Herman Palenchar & Scott, was included in the National Law Journal’s Winning Hall of Fame in 2009. His inclusion was based on his record of success over many years. Among his successful

Martha Coakley (’79) was

Niki Tsongas (’88)

the first woman elected

established the first all-

Mass. attorney general.

female law firm in Lowell, served as dean of external

cases was Bush v. Gore, the Florida “hanging

affairs at Middlesex Community College

chad” case that led to George W. Bush becoming the 43rd U.S. president.

David E. Kelley David E. Kelley (’83) was

Kirk Bauer

the first TV producer to

Kirk Bauer (’78) was

win Emmy and Golden

appointed to the first

Globe awards in both the

Presidential delegation

Outstanding/Best Drama Series (“The

to represent the USA

Practice”) and the Outstanding/Best

at foreign Paralympic Games, when he

Comedy Series (“Ally McBeal”) categories

attended the Winter Paralympic Games

in the same year (1999). Kelley was also

in Torino, Italy, and in 2008, the Summer

the creator of the series “Boston Legal.”

Paralympic Games in Beijing. A disabled

Those shows and the Kelley-written series

Vietnam veteran, he is executive director

“LA Law” were among the top 10 legal

of Disabled Sports USA and vice chair on

TV shows of all time, according to the

The President’s Council on Physical Fitness

ABA Journal. His father, Jack Kelley, was

and Sports. He founded the first nationwide

the former head coach for the BU Terriers

fitness exercise program for disabled

hockey team.

individuals and the Wounded Warrior

and was the first female Democrat in 35

Daily Kos political blog gets millions of hits Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga (’99) known by his former military nickname “Kos,” is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, considered the largest U.S. progressive community blog, with more than 215,000 registered users and 2.5 million unique viewers per month as of August 2009. The site’s visitors include Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Jimmy Carter, and President Barack Obama. Markos is also a weekly columnist at the Washington, D.C., newspaper The Hill, and a contributing columnist at Newsweek.

years to be elected to Congress in Mass. In her 2008 BU Law commencement address, she said, “As we today take for granted women’s participation in law schools across the country, BU Law deserves great credit for opening the door to women so many years ago; and I am grateful for having been able to walk through that door, and the many others that opened as a result of the education I received here.”

Sabita Singh Sabita Singh (’90) was the first woman of South Asian heritage appointed Mass.

District Court judge.

Disabled Sports Project.

Sampling of Alumni Who Made History

BU History Brochure.indd 9

Did You Know?

Civil rights leader and living legend Glendora McIlwain Putnam (’48) was a civil rights and community leader, Massachusetts assistant attorney general for civil rights, chair of the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination, deputy assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, equal opportunity officer for Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, and national president of the YWCA. She was presented the Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin Lifetime Achievement Award by the Museum of African American History. “My professional goal was to get rid of discrimination and segregation. That’s why I went to law school…to eliminate segregation to the extent that it exists in Massachusetts…in all areas of operation. And I couldn’t conquer them all, but I think I put a dent in quite a few.”

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Did You Know?

Brutalist architecture and the BU Tower

Notable faculty

When BU Law moved to the Charles River

The BU Law tower was designed by

campus, it occupied the lower half of

Spanish architect Josep Lluís Sert

the University’s first “high-rise,” a tower

(1902—1983), who worked with Le

designed in the Brutalist architectural style that extended to the student union and library.

Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, former President and future Chief Justice William H. Taft, and grandson and greatgrandson of U.S. presidents Brooks Adams, probably the leading public intellectual of his day, all taught at BU Law. Today, the BU Law faculty is ranked among the best in the nation for teaching quality.

Renaissance man

Corbusier, and created some notable designs in Barcelona including the Miro Foundation Museum as well as the

Brutalism is a modernist style that flourished from the 1950s to the mid1970s. The “Brutalism” term comes from

Spanish Republic’s Pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris.

the French béton brut, or “raw concrete,” a

In 1939 Sert moved to New York City,

phrase used by Le Corbusier to describe

where he worked on urban plans for

the poured board-marked concrete with which he constructed many of his postWorld War II buildings. In an economically

cities in South America. In 1953 he became dean of the Harvard Graduate

depressed post-war Europe, this style of

School of Design, and started the world’s

architecture was inexpensive, although

first degree program in urban design.

many architects also appreciated the

His firm Sert, Jackson & Associates also

style’s “honesty,” sculptural qualities and

designed the Miró Studio, the Holyoke

even anti-bourgeois nature.

Centre in Cambridge and the Harvard

Many universities in North America were

Science Center.

BU Law Tower

undergoing expansions during the 1960s; William S. Cohen (LLB ’65) was a U.S. senator from Maine who was appointed Secretary of Defense, a rare Republican in President Clinton’s cabinet. Cohen is also an author who has written mysteries, poetry, an analysis of the Iran-Contra affair, the espionage thriller Dragon Fire, and a memoir with his wife, former Boston TV personality Janet Langhart, Love in Black and White. Cohen and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are co-chairing the Genocide Prevention Task Force.

as a result, there are a significant number of Brutalist buildings on American and Canadian campuses.

Examples of Brutalist architecture

UCSD’s Geisel Library

BU History Brochure.indd 10

The Yale Art and Architecture Building, pre-expansion

J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.

Boston City Hall, part of Government Center

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A special thank you to the late Margaret der Hagopian, consultant to the dean, and Professor David Seipp, who teaches legal history at BU Law. Their dedication and commitment to celebrating the history of BU Law helped bring this publication to life.

For a video of Professor Seipp’s lecture on BU Law’s history, go to www.bu.edu/law/events/audio-video.

See a more extensive account of BU Law’s history at www.bu.edu/law/timeline.

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For a complete history, check out our interactive history timeline at

www.bu.edu/law/timeline.

On the cover (l-r):

Photo attribution:

Takeo Kikuchi (1877)

David E. Kelly - Alan Light

Edward Brooke III (‘48, ‘49)

Boston City Hall - Wikimedia Commons: Bobak Ha’Eri

Niagara Movement

J. Edgar Hoover - Wikimedia Commons: Aude

Niki Tsongas (‘88)

Yale art - Wikimedia Commons: Interrupt

Consuelo Northrop Bailey (‘25)

UCSD’s Geisel Library - Ben Lunsford

Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga (’99) Thomas E. Burke (1896) William J. Curran, BU Law professor and first director of the Boston University Law-Medicine Research Institute, pictured on right Barbara Jordan (‘59) Gary F. Locke (‘75) Arthur MacLean (1906) and his Portia Law School students Clifton R. Wharton Sr. (‘20, ’23) Alan “The Horse” Miller (‘65)

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