Tribute to Charles Black.

• Author: Clinton, Hillary Rodham
• Position: Columbia Law School law professor

I want to thank Barbara for asking me to speak here at this memorial service and celebration of Charles Black's life. I particularly pay my respects to his family. I thank Barbara not only for her friendship and leadership, but also for what she did both directly and indirectly on behalf of women in the law for so many years. As I recall, and it may only be my hazy recollection, Charles Black once told me that the reason he was put out with Yale was because of the nepotism rules then in place that prevented the Law School from employing both Barbara and Charles, which he thought was an extraordinary injustice and loss for the Law School.

I don't know if that was the case, but I do know that Barbara's scholarship, her teaching here at Columbia, and her deanship were an extraordinary message to women law students, women law professors, and women lawyers. And I believe that in a great way, Charles's effort to support women students was given fullest flower in the extraordinary career that his wife had.

And to his children, I know that hearing these stories may in some respects fill in some blanks that maybe you didn't even know were there, in the knowledge that you had of your father. I think that they convey in some small measure the extraordinary love, affection, and regard that he was held in by so many. And to his brother, Thomas Black, I thank you for sharing those early recollections; you cleared up a mystery, for me at least. I didn't really understand Professor Black's attraction to ballet and jazz until I heard your explanation, and it became abundantly clear.

It's an extraordinary pleasure but a little bit daunting for me to stand before you as a former student, as someone who looked at Professor Black from afar, with great interest and affection, and to have had the privilege of listening to three giants of the law talk about their friend and colleague. Judge Weinstein has literally made the law, and has done so with great distinction for many years. Judge Calabresi is making the law, and came to his appointment with a reputation, well-deserved, of being someone who is not only a superb legal scholar but a humane man of letters as well. Judge Pollak, whom I will always consider Dean Pollak, is still causing trouble on the federal bench, which is in the finest tradition of Yale Law School, as is his commitment in doing what he believes to be right.

I started Yale Law School in the fall of 1969, at the beginning of what former Dean...