In this engaging, erudite new book, Robert J. Kaczorowski, director of the Condon Institute of Legal History, immerses readers in the story of Fordham Law School from the day it opened its doors in 1905 in the midst of massive changes in the United States, in the legal profession, and in legal education. Kaczorowski explores why so many immigrants and their children needed the founding of Catholic law schools in order to enter the legal profession in the first half of the twentieth century. He documents how, in the 1920s and 1930s, when the legal profession’s elites were actively trying to raise barriers that would exclude immigrants, Dean Wilkinson and the law faculty at Fordham were implementing higher standards while simultaneously striving to make Fordham the best avenue into the legal profession for New York City’s immigrants. Tracing Fordham Law School’s history in the context of developments in legal education over the course of the twentieth century, this book pinpoints those factors that produce greatness in a law school and those that contribute to its decline. Fordham University School of Law: A History shows and explains why, prior to World War II, Fordham was one of the leading law schools in America and, along with Columbia's, one of the top two law schools in New York City. As one of those leading schools, Fordham was in the vanguard of legal education reform, and its faculty made important contributions to legal scholarship. Fordham University School of Law: A History also reveals that, after World War II, the Law School suffered a decline, primarily because of inadequate funding resulting from the university’s fiscal policies. These policies brought the university’s administration into direct conflict with the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), which consistently observed that the Law School was being starved for funds compared with its peer schools, with the result that peer law schools were improving their quality while Fordham was in decline. The conflict, which did not approach resolution at Fordham until the last quarter of the century, was replicated throughout legal education, especially in Catholic universities—yet this is the first scholarly work to document and explain it. Kaczorowski’s wonderfully contextualized, meticulously documented history of Fordham Law School brings readers right up to the present day and traces how the Law School, with the unprecedented financial support and active involvement of its alumni, is resuming its prior position as one of the nation’s leading law schools.

This landmark work of Constitutional and legal history is the leading account of the ways in which federal judges, attorneys, and other law officers defined a new era of civil and political rights in the South and implemented the revolutionary 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments during Reconstruction. “Should be required reading . . . for all historians, jurists, lawyers, political scientists, and government officials who in one way or another are responsible for understanding and interpreting our civil rights past.”—Harold M. Hyman, Journal of Southern History “Important, richly researched. . . . the fullest account now available.”—American Journal of Legal History

Taking their cue from the late Paul L. Murphy, one of our nation's leading legal historians, this illustrious group of scholars argues that the field of constitutional history is "too important to be left solely to lawyers and judges." Their "state-of-the-field" volume reclaims constitutional history's rightful place as a vital and necessary part of our intellectual enterprise, in part by pushing the field onto fresh, even controversial, terrain. The result is a provocative new look at the past, present, and future of American constitutionalism, one that opens a window on the larger American soul.

Much as Murphy has done, these scholars contend that this restoration is much needed and will greatly enrich judicial and public policy, advance a tradition of justice worthy of America's democratic aspirations, give due attention to cultural contexts, and, most importantly, afford Americans a richer understanding of their constitutional heritage.

Their essays explore, for example, the ways in which previously excluded groups have come more fully into the Constitution's orbit of freedom, the ongoing importance of institutions and doctrines, and the ways in which theory and informal texts might enrich the field. How, they ask, might scholars take account of the lived experiences of litigants, reformers, and lawyers in the forging of constitutional change?

A kind of prospectus for the future of American constitutional history, these essays address fundamental questions about the field and its evolution. More important, they persuasively argue that the best way to reinvigorate the study of constitutionalism is to reconnect it to its social and cultural contexts, to appreciate the continuing necessity of archival research, to recognize and support the value of new approaches and perspectives, and to reaffirm in the end that the best way to explain the history of rights is to remember the courage of the people who had the vision and conviction to put the judges through their constitutional paces.