Ralph Brown: farewell to a friend.

• Author: Pollak, Louis H.
• Position: Ralph Sharp Brown, Intellectual Property, and the Public Interest - Brief Article

As Dean Anthony Kronman and Professor Boris Bittker have reminded us, Ralph Sharp Brown was an actively engaged teaching member of the Yale Law School faculty for over fifty years--longer, even, than Arthur Corbin.(1) Something of the range of Ralph Brown's manifold contributions to the Yale Law School has been recalled for us by the Dean. Suffice it to say that Ralph, like Boris Bittker, was a leader of that group of dedicated and demanding teacher-scholars who brought the Yale Law School from aspiration to preeminence.

But Ralph's life at Yale was not circumscribed by the Law School. He was a leading citizen of the University, counseling countless presidents, provosts and deans on matters both of process and of substance. And, as John Ryden will shortly tell us--and as Chester Kerr would affirm, if only he could be with us--Ralph was for decades a major figure in the work of the Yale University Press.

As Boris has noted, Ralph was also a leading citizen of his and Betty's home town of Guilford. And Ralph's citizenship also extended to the Browns' summer residence in another small town--Salem, New York, just up Route 22. Twelve years ago, Ralph and Betty's youngest daughter Lila--the magically talented violist who, together with her colleagues, we have had the joy of hearing from this afternoon--undertook, with others, to establish a summer chamber music series at Salem--which has flourished, bringing delight to that entire region. This past summer, in early August, Kathy--my wife--and I attended one of the "Music from Salem" concerts presented by Lila, her husband, Werner Dickel, and other artists. Inserted in the program that evening was a slip of paper with a brief text. It read:

Ralph S. Brown (1913-1998) We mourn our departed friend--distinguished professor of law at Yale University, dedicated civil libertarian, lover of chamber music--without whose generous support Music from Salem would not have thrived. "[D]edicated civil libertarian," said the program insert. Dedicated indeed. From 1954 to 1991--for thirty-seven years--Ralph was a member of the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, and he continued on the ACLU's constitution committee even after he retired from the Board. Ralph's role in the ACLU was as influential as his role, described to us by Professor Robert Gorman, in the AAUP. Ralph not only served as an architect of the ACLU's positions on major civil liberties issues, he also played a principal part in reconfiguring the ACLU's own board structure, with a view to permitting an organization once dominated by New York, Boston, and New Haven to get effective input from affiliates in such frontier communities as Chicago and Los Angeles. In Board debate, Ralph's wisdom--couched in the dignity...