No doubt some of the legal details of this case, particularly as they apply to race and equity, are complicated. As such, the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law has introduced a new, 14-week class called “”

The class is the brainchild of Dean Colin Crawford and is open to law students who have passed their first year. According to the Courier Journal, 12 students are currently enrolled and eight others are auditing.

The class features different speakers who discuss topics such as housing, reparations and policing. Crawford told the CJ that while Breonna Taylor’s death is the impetus behind the class and, the greater movement, students are tasked with introducing amendments to laws that may mask systemic inequality.

In a letter to the law school community on June 1, , writing in part:

“…As I watch these (protests) unfold, I think of the importance of the importance of the law at times like these. Law is everywhere at this moment. Lawyers likely approved the no-knock warrant policy that has now been rescinded. Lawyers originally charged Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, for the shots he fired from his own, permitted firearm. A lawyer – the Commonwealth Attorney – subsequently rescinded those charges. Lawyers will represent Taylor’s family and Walker going ahead, as they will do for the police involved.

“The law also permits us as Americans to protest peacefully. And the law will be used to punish those who turned peaceable protests violent, unnecessarily and with needless destruction of property, causing physical injury and further death.

“Perhaps most powerfully, these events remind me of our national commitment to equality of treatment before the law, a principle included in the 14^th Amendment over a century ago. The inequities that led to its passage, as recent events demonstrate, are tragically still with us. For my part, I therefore hope that this historical moment will lead all of us to re-examine the persistent disparities and inequities that too often characterize the structure and practice of our institutions, enabling systematic oppression of particular groups, and especially of African Americans.��I hope that many of you feel the same.��The current events show us that we still have far to go to be able truly to claim to be ‘one nation, undivided, with liberty and justice for all.’

Lawyers can help change that reality. Lawyers will be evermore important in the coming months and years. More will be demanded of us as we are called upon to dedicate ourselves, as officers of the court and as those who translate our highest principles into laws and regulations, to the cause of justice applied equally and fairly for all people, no matter what they look like or their station in life. As Justice Brandeis famously said, ‘The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.’ This is no time for us as a people – and as lawyers – to be inert.”

The CJ reports that “Freddie Gray’s Baltimore” class at the University of Maryland helped inspire UofL’s class. Freddie Gray was arrested in Baltimore in 2015 for possessing a knife. He fell into a coma while being transported in a police van and later died due to injuries to his spinal cord. Breonna Taylor’s death obviously hits closer to home.�� 

“We’re the only law school in this city, so it’s really important that we engage,” . “I’m really hoping (the students) will come up with a solution of their own and feel they’ve been empowered to think about these matters differently and use law as a tool for positive change.”

Resources added ahead of the verdict

The Counseling Center, Cultural Center, LGBT Center, PEACC, and Student Affairs are collaborating to hold virtual drop-in group sessions for students who want to connect, share, and find support in light of the Attorney General’s impending announcement on the Breonna Taylor case. Student well being is a priority, as we strive to foster an environment of inclusiveness that empowers us all to our highest potential without fear of prejudice or bias. Groups will be held via Microsoft Teams. The sessions will not be recorded. .

Additionally, the Office of Diversity and Equity has compiled a list of for the campus community. The list will be updated on an ongoing basis.

He’s a new face at the University of Louisville, but he’s no stranger to the demands of a university administrator — or to Kentucky, where his father’s family has roots.

From his father’s hometown in western Kentucky came a career that has taken Crawford across the country and around the world. He brings a distinct international perspective to Brandeis Law; he speaks three languages and has lectured and taught in several countries, including Brazil, China, Colombia and Spain.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Crawford is a self-described academic entrepreneur with scholarly interests in environmental, urban development and land-use issues.

He comes to Brandeis Law from Tulane University, where he was a law professor and director of an international development center for undergraduate and graduate students.

He had the chance to share a bit about what he admires about the Brandeis School of Law and his hopes for the school in the changing landscape of legal education.

UofL News: What attracted you to Brandeis?

Colin Crawford: Louisville was especially attractive to me, first for family reasons. My father was from western Kentucky. Although he spent most of his childhood school years in Denver, where I was raised, his father’s family raised trotting horses and his father was killed in a riding accident when my dad was under a year old.

His mother, a nurse, then moved to Colorado to find work. A brother had gone there for asthma treatment. She got a job in one of the asthma hospitals. But my grandfather was the youngest of 10 children and the only boy, and my father was the only child. So he would go back in the summers and he’d be like a little king, doted on by all these relatives of the only boy and the youngest child, now dead. That’s all a long way of saying that Kentucky as a state figures very large in my mental imagination and my family emotional life. Even though I’d only been a couple of times before myself, it was very, very big part of our family history.

Then, of course, the Brandeis name is very appealing. I knew it was a very old law school and the Brandeis inheritance is an important one. I think Brandeis, especially in these very polarized political times, is an interesting figure because he doesn’t neatly fit in to our current conservative or liberal categories. That’s partly because he was a person in a different time. But I really think he was a very nuanced and complicated person and thinker. The thought of being associated with a school that tries to channel that inheritance is very appealing.

UofL News: What do you see as some of the law school’s strengths?

Colin Crawford: All of my interactions with staff and with faculty — and not just at Brandeis but with the university — were very positive. I also thought the city was very beautiful. It seemed like it’d be a nice place to live, with a strong business community. The law school seemed to be peopled with a terrifically nice, hard-working, interesting group of people.

Since then, I’ve been very attracted to the very strong faculty-student bond. I’ve had current students write me out of the blue and say how glad they are that I’m coming and they’re looking forward to meeting me, which I think speaks very well for the school culture.

Particularly given the current budget circumstances in the university and in law schools generally, it’s just very impressive the range of things that a relatively small school does. Brandeis is really fighting above its weight. It’s doing a lot more than one would expect with the resources.

The strong commitment to working in the community I think is really important in a state school, especially. My best teaching experiences actually have been at state schools, so I like that mission very much.

UofL News: Law schools nationally are facing changes in enrollment and funding that make the role of a dean challenging in new ways. What made you want to take on this role?

Colin Crawford: I have lots of friends who are deans or senior administrators and I explored this question with them. Why would anyone want to do this job at this difficult moment? But on reflection I came to feel that it really played to some of my strengths.

Not by design but just the way my career has worked out, I turned out to be a kind of academic entrepreneur, so I actually think I have some skill in administration. I like administration. I like building institutions.

There’s been great work that’s been done by former Dean Susan Duncan, particularly building up the alumni base, and I felt there was room to then build upon those successes. There are some new possibilities and opportunities to keep on pushing the school further ahead. It seemed like an interesting challenge — and I’m very tired of the New Orleans weather, too.

UofL News: What do you see as opportunities for growth at the Brandeis School of Law?

Colin Crawford: I think this school could be a little more outward-looking, a little more international in its outlook. Commerce today is very global and there are opportunities to do things in the world. You can be based in a commercial city like Louisville, and you can be doing things with other countries. I really think that there are some terrific opportunities to try to develop internationally.

I also think there are some commonalities, at least as seen from the outside, in faculty strengths and I’d like to try to package those to emphasize to the world what we have to offer, besides a very friendly, student-focused and talented faculty. I think it’s really important in today’s legal market to give students a sense of what their training is going to get them, how they get from A to B. Some of the older models of legal education may not be as convincing or compelling as they once were. I’d like to see us think about shaping the existing strengths in different ways.

I’d like to help promote a really robust intellectual legal environment on campus as well. I don’t mean that students have to become deeply involved in academic legal writing, but I do believe it is useful for law students to understand that ideas power the law and result in legal change and that we’re in a profession that is a debate about principles and values and ideas, and how to make them concrete and so to change people’s lives.

In the longer term, I have some ideas about curriculum reform and different ways you can structure courses. I think in law schools in the United States in general, legal education is following an older model than some other disciplines, and I think there are some dynamic ways to try and break up the curriculum and to do different things. This is challenging at a school like Brandeis because it’s small. You have to cover some basics and generally they have to be covered in traditional ways, across the arc of a 14- or 15-week semester. But beyond that, I’d like to explore some other ways of learning and teaching.

And, finally, I’m already starting to talk to the development office about different ways we might try and create new student opportunities that would help find students complementary experiences to their legal education, perhaps by means of trying to create some competitive fellowships with distinctive features. Of course, that means finding alums and other donors who share the view that such initiatives merit their support.

Everything I say is conditioned upon having the support of the faculty and the students. It’s not the Colin Crawford show.

Quick facts about Dean Crawford 

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

Undergrad: BA in history, Columbia University

Graduate studies: MA in history and PhD candidate in history, University of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College

Law school: JD, Harvard Law School

Previous permanent positions at: Tulane University, Georgia State University College of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Brooklyn Law School

Languages spoken: English (native), Portuguese (fluent), Spanish (fluent), French (basic conversational)

Lewis was the first female law dean at the University of Louisville, serving in that position from 1982-1990. After she left the dean’s office, she returned to the faculty, where she mostly taught tax law, until her retirement in 2006. Even after retirement, she continued as an adjunct professor until 2014.

Linda Ewald, a retired professor at the Brandeis School of Law and an associate dean under Lewis, provided information about Lewis’ life and career:

Lewis earned bachelor’s and JD degrees from the University of Louisville, a master’s in education from Tennessee Technological University and a Master of Law and Taxation from the Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary.

Before her career in legal education, Lewis worked as an attorney for the U.S. Corps of Engineers, as a probation officer for the Jefferson County Juvenile Court and as a teacher in Honduras and Guatemala.

Her true passion was the law and education, and following her graduation from William and Mary, she taught at Cumberland School of Law and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she also served as chair of the faculty senate and as interim dean.

Born in Campbellsville, Kentucky, Lewis returned to her Kentucky roots in 1982 when she and her husband, Jim, came to Louisville, where she became dean of the Brandeis School of Law.  

Lewis was a trailblazer in legal education. She was one of only a handful of women students in her law school class and at the time she was named dean at UofL there were only five other women law deans nationwide. During her tenure as dean, she built bridges within the community and the profession and served on a number of boards, including the Center for Women and Families, the Department of Public Advocacy, the Louisville and Kentucky Bar Foundations, the League of Women Voters, the ACLU and Citizens for Better Judges.  

As dean, and later as a professor, she worked tirelessly to promote diversity in the law school and the profession. She served on many national boards, including the Council on Legal ����ֱ�� Opportunity, the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession and the Law School Admissions Council Task Force on Minority Recruitment, as well as numerous local and state-wide initiatives relating to access and diversity in the legal profession.  

While Lewis enjoyed the challenges of the deanship, she missed daily contact with students. In 1990 she returned to pursue her passion, classroom teaching.

Mostly, she taught tax. When asked why anyone would teach tax, she would respond with, “I just love the Internal Revenue Code.”

As a professor, she was tough, demanding and had no patience with slackers. She felt strongly about the importance of attendance, preparedness and promptness. She was a stickler for all three. Lewis expected students to be respectful, responsible, collegial and professional. Students who complained about the difficulty of the tax code or the length of an assignment generally got the same response from her: “Life is tough.” On occasion, she was known to make the same observation in faculty meetings.

Despite the heavy demands Lewis placed on students, and the fact that some students found her a bit intimidating, she cared deeply about them personally and about their professional success.

She taught them tax but, more importantly, she taught them about the values of the legal profession and what it means to be a professional. She was a mentor and role model to generations of students.

When she announced her retirement in 2006, the Student Bar Association created a special teaching award in her honor and recognized her at graduation. Throughout her career she received many awards for her leadership and community service, but the awards she received from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Louisville for excellence in teaching were the ones she valued most.

Barbara Lewis loved the law and she was devoted to her students. Several years ago, upon receiving a Kentucky Bar Association Award, she said, “I have always thought that to be a lawyer is a great calling. It is a great service, and to teach lawyers is great privilege.”

She embraced the calling, served the community and profession with distinction and taught her heart out every single day.�� A life well lived. She will be missed.��

Brandeis School of Law Professor Laura Rothstein, who served as the law school’s second female dean (2000-2005), shared this letter she wrote to Lewis in 2007:

But it wasn’t until he got further into his role as dean that Burnett says he truly began to understand the depth of that bond.

Burnett came to admire Brandeis’ respect for small institutions, his appreciation for federalism, his interdisciplinary insights and his vision of universities as hubs of innovation. Burnett especially admired Brandeis’ commitment to pro bono work.

“He really thought that was part of the obligation of lawyers and part of the noble calling of the law as a career,” said Burnett, who served as dean of the law school from 1990-2000.

Burnett knew that Brandeis had been a generous donor to the law school, helping the school financially as well as donating his personal library and correspondence.

In light of all this, Burnett began advocating to change the name of the law school in honor Brandeis. Many law schools are named for donors, after all, and Brandeis’ gifts helped shape the law school in more ways than one.

“His contributions were more meaningful than money alone,” Burnett said. “They were the contributions of someone who exemplified with the highest value and the greatest potential of the law.”

Working with colleagues, including then-Associate Dean Linda Ewald, Burnett began circulating the idea among faculty, alumni, the local bench and bar, university leadership and the Brandeis family itself. There was broad support for naming the law school in honor of Brandeis.

On Feb. 24, 1997, the UofL Board of Trustees made it official: the law school became the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.

But before that change, Brandeis’ legacy took life in another way: In 1990, the law school established one of the first five mandatory pro bono requirements in the country. The first semester the program was instated, administrators saw a huge, positive student response.

“We realized we were doing something very substantial to a large number of our students,” Burnett says. “It spoke to their sense of professional responsibility — the highest calling of the law.”

Carrying the Brandeis name has given the law school a unique advantage in the national landscape of legal education, Burnett says. Prospective students know this is a school that carries on the name and spirit of a towering figure who saw law as a noble calling.

“His legacy has its home at the University of Louisville.”

The allows eligible undergraduates to make their senior year of college also count as their first year of law school. That means scholars could complete a juris doctor — or law degree — a year earlier. Savings would be more than $20,000 for in-state students and more than $37,000 for non-resident students.

The program is a partnership between the College of Arts and Sciences and the Brandeis School of Law. Currently, students majoring in criminal justice, history and women’s and gender studies are eligible to apply during their junior year. If accepted, they can then apply to Brandeis provided they meet minimum GPA and law school admission test (LSAT) score requirements.

“As a National Jurist and preLaw magazines’ Best Value Law School, we pride ourselves on providing a high-quality legal education and ample career opportunities at a reasonable cost to our students,” said Susan Duncan, Dean of Brandeis School of Law. “The 3+3 program takes this focus on efficiency a step further by allowing students to jump-start their legal careers a year earlier than in traditional models.”

UofL administrators said the collaboration between the two colleges is a good example of interdisciplinary teamwork and innovative solutions to help students graduate quickly and with less debt.

“This partnership is an opportunity for A&S students to demonstrate how a degree in the liberal arts and sciences is an excellent foundation for the Brandeis School of Law,” said A&S Dean Kimberly Kempf-Leonard. “We are confident that students who complete one of the 3+3 programs will be poised for success in their chosen career paths.”

The new approach has already attracted the interest of Owensboro native Lacey Parham, an incoming UofL student who first entered college at age 16 and graduated high school with a pair of associate degrees. Parham was drawn to the opportunity to accelerate her education toward her goal becoming a U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General, an elite law professional who offers counsel to the military.��

“Because of my nontraditional academic background, the 3+3 law program at the University of Louisville could not have fit more perfectly into my academic plans,” said Parham. “Through 3+3 law, I will be afforded the opportunity to experience unrivaled education at my dream school on a timeline that works for me.”

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