The generosity of a dean.

• Author: Calabresi, Guido
• Position: Eugene V. Rostow, Yale Law School - Testimonial

Gene Rostow was probably the greatest dean in the history of the Yale Law School. When he became dean, the school was a depleted and divided place. In the first seven years of his tenure some twenty-two people--Alex Bickel, Joe Bishop, Charles Black, Robert Bork, Ward Bowman, Frank Coker, Steve Duke, Ronald Dworkin, Abe Goldstein, Joe Goldstein, Quint Johnstone, Leon Lipson, Bay Manning, Ellen Peters, Lou Pollak, Charlie Reich, John Simon, Clyde Summers, Robert Stevens, Harry Wellington, Ralph Winter, and I--joined the permanent faculty. Of this extraordinary group, four--Lou Pollak, Abe Goldstein, Harry Wellington, and I--succeeded him as dean, so that from 1955 to 1994, either Gene or one of his kids led the school. This was Gene's long legacy as dean, a legacy all the more impressive when you observe, as Gene often did, that deans have no power. (He was fond of saying that, as dean, the only things he could decide were the placement of portraits and the gender designation of lavatories--and that, even as to these, it was not all that clear.)

He had many, many remarkable qualities that made his success not only possible, but almost inevitable. In this short appreciation, I will focus on one--his amazing generosity. And I will--as is my wont--tell a few stories involving me to demonstrate my point.

When I first decided to join the Yale faculty, I went to Gene to let him know. His answer was, "Wonderful, but tell me, what is the most any other school offered you?" I said that I was young, a bachelor with few needs, so salary was not a concern; the going rate would be fine. He replied, "That may be, but Yale cannot afford to pay you less than the most that you have been offered elsewhere." That simple statement told me an enormous amount about the school, and about Gene's regard for me and for where Yale stood in the law school world. I never forgot it.

Financial generosity was only a small part of Gene's largesse. The next year I received a fascinating offer to go to Washington and join the Kennedy Administration. I did not know whether a leave that soon after starting at Yale was permitted, so I asked Gene. Rather than answering me, he asked, "Do you want to go?" I told him I wasn't sure and first wished to know if I was allowed to do it. He smiled and said, "No, no. These are very important people who have asked you. They will be angry if you turn them down, and you are young and their resentment may hurt you in the future." "So," he...