Yale Law School and the Sixties (Studies in Legal History)

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Kalman examines the crucial period of 1967-1970 at Yale Law School, when the mainstream liberal faculty was challenged by left-liberal students who aimed to unlock the democratic visions of law and social change they associated with Yale's legal realists of the 1930s. Law students during this phase of the school's history included Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Clarence Thomas.

Yale Law School and the Sixties (Studies in Legal History) Review

Each of Laura Kalman's preceding books to some extent has dealt with Yale Law School: the incisive "Legal Realism at Yale"; her definitive biography of Abe Fortas; and the awesome "Strange Career of Legal Liberalism." This new and very long volume focuses upon the turbulence that descended upon Yale in the late 1960's and early 1970's. For readers whose interest in the topic does not extend to reading a 474 page, highly detailed analysis, Kalman has written an essay with the book's major themes in the volume of essays edited by Dean Kronman, "History of the Yale Law School" (also reviewed by myself on Amazon).

The typical (and welcome) Kalman thoroughness is well in evidence here. As is usual, much of the value of her analysis is found in the footnotes, here covering some 80 pages. As the "Legal Liberalism" volume demonstrated, there is nobody who can trace the evolution of professorial legal analysis with greater skill and cogency than Kalman. Kalman sets the stage by first discussing legal education in the 1960's at YLS, and develops quite a nice and concise history going back to the New Deal period as background. Particular attention is paid to individuals such as Dean Rostow, Kingman Brewster, and Charles Reich. Particularly welcome, and quite an additional bonus, is the fact that the author devotes substantial attention to Alexander Bickel, a figure too often forgotten today due to his premature death at 49.

Having set the background, Kalman then goes into a very detailed reconstruction of how highly activist students clashed with the YLS institutional structure. When one considers that this was the era of the Vietnam war, affirmative action, Kent State, Hippies, Black Panthers, and the Women's movement, it is no wonder that disruption became extreme, including at least one fire. YLS obviously survived and prospered in the post-disruption period, and Kalman addresses that as well. These later chapters I found to be the more interesting. For example, her discussion of the failure of critical legal studies, "law and society", and "law and economics" to take root in the legal realism foundation of YLS is extremenly interesting. By contrast, YLS becomes the home to a new version of the "legal process" approach to limiting judicial discretion as disappointment grew in the 1970's and 1980's with the exercise of judicial power, including even the record of the Warren Court. More prominent actors appear in this later section, to the reader's benefit: Dworking, Ely, Calabresi, Ackerman, Cover and Fiss. Interdisciplinary approaches to law flower and clinical education becomes well established and supported. In the end, the protestors brought about substantial change at YLS.

The one area that Kalman does not discuss fully enough is why should anyone with no ties to YLS take the time to digest this mighty tome. It does recapture the spirit of the period and the protests that dominated higher education in America. It does illuminated how substantial changes in the legal academy came about as a result of this period. It does afford some insight into the backgrounds of some prominent recent actors such as Justice Thomas, Anita Hill, Judge Alito, and most of all, both Clintons who were YLS students. Most importantly, it explains the impact that YLS professors had on legal scholarship in this country with a stream of articles and books arguing for new and incisive ways to confront the phenomenon of American law and the exercise of judicial power. By any measure, a timely volume to be sure.

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