School Notes: Yale Law School
March/April 2012

Law School hosts distinguished guests

US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas ’74JD was welcomed back to his alma mater on December 14, where he spent a full day meeting with members of the Yale Law School Federalist Society and Black Law Students Association and coteaching a Federal Jurisdiction class with Sterling Professor of Law Akhil Reed Amar ’84JD. He also attended a reception for faculty and guests hosted by Dean Robert Post ’77JD. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger engaged with students on December 9 in a “Special Conversation on Sino-America Relations.” Kissinger addressed students from the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs as well as the Law School and later met with the Yale Law Foreign Policy Workshop. Former British prime minister Tony Blair spoke to the Law School community and guests on December 2 about faith, globalization, security, and constitutional reform in Great Britain, among other topics. Blair, who previously cotaught a course on faith and globalization with divinity professor Miroslav Volf, was delivering the Law School’s annual Judge Jon O. Newman Lecture on Global Justice.

Two receive endowed professorships

Anne L. Alstott ’87JD has been named the Jacquin D. Bierman Professor of Taxation. A specialist in taxation and social policy, Alstott joined Yale Law School in 1997 and was originally named the Bierman Professor of Taxation in 2004. She served as deputy dean in 2002 and 2004 and twice won the Yale Law Women teaching award. She left Yale Law in 2008 to teach law at Harvard, and rejoined the Yale Law faculty in July 2011. Michael Wishnie ’93JD has been named the William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law. He joined Yale Law School in 2006 and assumed directorship of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization (LSO) in February 2011. His teaching, scholarship, and law practice have focused on immigration, labor and employment, habeas corpus, civil rights, government transparency, and veterans’ law.

Human rights program renewed through 2015

The Robina Foundation Human Rights Fellowship Initiative at Yale Law School was established in 2008 with the goal of fostering a burgeoning network of leaders who are passionate about and committed to human rights work. Originally funded by the Robina Foundation for three years, the grant was renewed in 2010 through fiscal year 2012. Recently the foundation pledged another $3 million to support the initiative through fiscal year 2015.