School Notes: Yale Law School
November/December 2007

Justice Anthony Kennedy lecture part of 11th annual Global Constitutionalism Seminar

A packed auditorium of more than 500 faculty and students gathered September 27 to hear the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, deliver the 2007-2008 Robert P. Anderson Memorial Lecture. Justice Kennedy, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1988 by President Reagan, spoke about "Constitutions: Structures and Rights" as part of a four-day Global Constitutionalism Seminar, held annually at the Law School. In its 11th year, the seminar brings together Supreme Court and constitutional court justices from around the world to freely and confidentially discuss with faculty members the most important legal issues of the day. The theme of this year's meetings was "The Design and Operation of Judicial Review." The 20 justices who attended included Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court; Justice Brun-Otto Bryde of the Constitutional Court of Germany; Justice Jose Ramon Cossio Diaz of the Supreme Court of Mexico; Justice Olivier Dutheillet de Lamothe of the Conseil Constitutionnel of France; Justice Kate O'Regan of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Vice President Wan Exiang of the Supreme People's Court, P.R. China; and Justice Luzius Wildhaber, former president of the European Court of Human Rights. The seminar was directed by Professor Paul Gewirtz ’70JD from its founding in 1996 through 2005, and since 2006 has been directed by Professor Robert Post ’77JD.

Alumni Weekend participants consider "twenty-first-century democracy"

An award to New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Linda Greenhouse ’78MSL and an interactive "Polling Game" emceed by Stanford Law professor Pam Karlan ’84JD were among the highlights of Alumni Weekend 2007, held October 12-14 at the Law School. Approximately 800 alumni attended, some traveling from as far away as Germany and the Philippines. The weekend included a series of stimulating panel discussions centering on twenty-first-century democracy as it relates to race, elections, new media, and the growing gap between rich and poor. Among the distinguished panelists were Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage ’03MSL, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting; Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times; Jeff Greenfield ’67JD, senior political correspondent for CBS News; and Myron H. Thompson ’69, ’72JD, U.S. district court judge for the Middle District of Alabama. There were also remembrances of two Yale Law School pioneers who passed away during the year -- the Honorable Jane M. Bolin ’31JD and Professor Pauli Murray ’65JSD.