Martha Minow

Martha Minow
Minow speaking at the 2010 Commencement for Harvard Law School
12th Dean of Harvard Law School
Incumbent
Assumed office July 1, 2009
Preceded by	Elena Kagan
Personal details
Born	December 6, 1954 (1954-12-06) (age 56) Highland Park, Illinois
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Joseph William Singer
Alma mater	University of Michigan (A.B.) Harvard University (M.A.) Yale Law School (J.D.)
Occupation	Professor Lawyer Administrator
Website	Martha Minow

Martha Louise Minow (born December 6, 1954)^[1][2][3] is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and the Dean of Harvard Law School.^[4] She teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. She has written extensively about human rights, with a focus on racial and religious minorities as well as in women, children, and persons with disabilities.^[5] She also writes and teaches about privatization, military justice, and ethnic and religious conflict. Minow was one of the candidates^[6] mentioned to replace U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens upon his retirement. This honor, however, went to Elena Kagan, Minow's predecessor as dean of Harvard Law School.^[7]

Biography

Minow is the daughter of former Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow and his wife Josephine Baskin Minow. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan (1975), Minow received a master’s degree in education from Harvard (1976) and her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School (1979),^[8] where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

After graduating law school, Minow clerked for Judge David Bazelon of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court.^[9]

She joined the Harvard Law faculty as an assistant professor in 1981, was promoted to professor in 1986, was named the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of Law in 2003, and became the Jeremiah Smith Jr., Professor of Law in 2005. She became Dean of Harvard Law School July 1, 2009.^[10] She is also a lecturer in the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Works, honors, and recognition

She co-chaired the Law School’s curricular reform committee from 2003 to 2006, an effort that led to significant innovation in the first-year curriculum as well as new programs of study for second- and third-year J.D. students.

Her honors include: the Sacks-Freund Teaching Award, selected by the Harvard Law School graduating class of 2005, the Holocaust Center Award, 2006, an Honorary Doctorate of Law, University of Toronto, 2006 and an Honorary Doctorate of Education, Wheelock College, 1996.^[11]

She served on the Independent International Commission Kosovo and helped to launch Imagine Co-existence, a program of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, to promote peaceful development in post-conflict societies. She has worked with the federal Department of Education and the Center for Applied Special Technology worked to increase access to educational curricula for students with disabilities. She also works on the Divided Cities initiative.^[4]

She chairs the board of directors for the Charles H. Revson Foundation^[12] (New York) and serves on the boards of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Covenant Foundation (New York and Chicago), Facing History and Ourselves,^[13] and the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 1992, Minow has also been a senior fellow of Harvard’s Society of Fellows, a member of Harvard University Press Board of Syndics, a senior fellow and twice acting director of what is now Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics ,and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She has delivered more than 70 named or endowed lectures and keynote addresses.

She served on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo and assisted in launching Imagine Coexistence, a program of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. She is also director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and serves on committees of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition and the Institute for Global Ethics. Since 1997 she has been a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama was asked why he had chosen a career of public service rather than corporate law. He responded, "When I was at Harvard Law School I had a teacher who changed my life -- Martha Minow."^[14] In August 2009, President Obama nominated Minow to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, a bi-partisan, government-sponsored organization that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.^[15]

Selected works

• "Government by Contract: Outsourcing and American Democracy" (Jody Freeman & Martha L. Minow eds., Harvard University Press 2009)
• "Living Up to Rules: Holding Soldiers Responsible for Abusive Conduct and the Dilemma of the Superior Orders Defence," 52 McGill Law Journal 1 (2007)
• "Tolerance in an Age of Terror," 16 University of Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 453 (2007)
• "Should Religious Groups Ever Be Exempt From Civil Rights Laws?" 48 Boston College Law Review 781 (2007)
• "Outsourcing Power: How Privatizing Military Efforts Challenges Accountability, Professionalism, and Democracy," 46 Boston College Law Review 989 (2005)
• Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good (2002)
• Engaging Cultural Differences (ed. with Richard Shweder and Hazel Markus, 2002)
• Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence (1998)
• Not Only For Myself: Identity, Politics, and Law (1997)
• Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (1990)
• "Law Turning Outward" Telos 73 (Fall 1987). New York: Telos Press

References

1. ^ Marquis Who's Who on the Web
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ "Candidates to replace Justice John Paul Stevens". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/2010candidates/martha-minow.html. Retrieved 2010-08-06. 
4. ^ ^{a b} http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/dean/dean-bio.html
5. ^ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Martha_Minow
6. ^ "Washingtonpost.Com". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/package/supremecourt/2010candidates/martha-minow.html. 
7. ^ "Names added to Supreme Court short list". CNN. April 12, 2010. http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/12/scotus.justice.names/index.html. 
8. ^ http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=45
9. ^ http://abovethelaw.com/2009/06/martha-minow-named-new-dean-of-harvard-law-school/
10. ^ http://harvardmagazine.com/breaking-news/martha-minow-appointed-dean-harvard-law-school
11. ^ http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/dean/dean-bio.html>
12. ^ http://revsonfoundation.org/about_board.html
13. ^ http://www.facinghistory.org/about/who/profiles/martha-minow-chair-facing-histo
14. ^ Samuel Gordon, "Obama and the Jews: An Inside Perspective", Shalom Hartman Institute (November 23, 2008)
15. ^ "Obama taps Martha Minow, John G. Levi for Legal Service Corporation Board". Chicago Sun-Times. http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/08/obama_taps_martha_minow_john_g.html. 

External links

• Martha Minow faculty page at Harvard Law School
• Martha Minow named dean of Harvard Law School
• Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics

Academic offices
Preceded by Elena Kagan	Dean of Harvard Law School July 1, 2009 – present	Succeeded by Incumbent

Martha Minow in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.

Persondata
Name	Minow, Martha
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	December 6, 1954
Place of birth	Highland Park, Illinois
Date of death
Place of death