Yale Kamisar: warrior scholar.

• Author: Allen, Francis A.
• Position: Testimonial

My association with Yale Kamisar dates back to the 1950s. At that time I became aware of the interesting publications of a young faculty member at the University of Minnesota. The articles were well done, most of them dealing with the Supreme Court's notable expansion of constitutional doctrine relating to criminal procedure, then at full tide, a field in which I also was writing. In addition, Yale had published a remarkable article on the subject of euthanasia, impressive for the thoroughness of its research and the clarity and force of its argument. Fortunately, I decided to write to Yale and express my appreciation for the work he was doing. It is possible that I am the author of Yale's first fan letter. He responded warmly, and there began a conversation that has continued for almost a half-century. The interchange has been one of the profitable and pleasant features of my time in the law schools.

To me the retirement of Yale Kamisar from the Michigan Law School faculty marks the end of an important epoch in American legal education and scholarship, an epoch in which by any definition Yale was a leading figure. His generation was too young to have participated in the Second World War, but many of its members retain childhood memories of it. (Not all were too young to be drafted into the Korean "police action," however, as Yale's own experience demonstrates.) Acute awareness of the Nazi holocaust was a potent influence in the lives of many in that generation; no doubt some could number members of their extended families among the Holocaust victims. It was not difficult for Yale and those of his contemporaries who as law teachers elected to work with the problems of criminal justice to perceive the dangers of abuse and the denial of human rights when governments exercise the police function; and there was abundant evidence that the reality and potentialities of such abuse were not confined to the totalitarian regimes of Europe, but, on the contrary, were clearly present in contemporary American society.

Despite the fact that there were somber problems to be confronted, Yale and his contemporaries spent a large part of their careers in an invigorating atmosphere when confidence of a better future came easily, and opportunities for advancing needed changes seemed available. The universities in the postwar world expanded enrollments and functions, and, as is often the case, institutional growth bred optimism. Most important to law teachers...