Stanley Weigel

* I was truly sorry to see the obituary (Sept. 4) for Stanley Weigel, who was a good judge, a good lawyer and, above all, a man of genuine principle. Those traits can indeed be combined.

The obituary mentioned that he first rose to fame through his successful defense of the University of California professors who had declined to sign a university loyalty oath in 1949-50, during the McCarthy era. I was one of those troublemakers. (There were 20 of us at the beginning of the litigation, and 18 at the end, not the 39 erroneously reported in the obit.)

I recall two details of the circumstances under which we hired Weigel. He walked into the interview room in which we were all seated around a table and was introduced to us, one by one. He then said, “Let’s see if I have it straight,” and proceeded to address each of us by name. As far as I was concerned, he had the job. Since we were jobless and our pay had been stopped by the university, we had to discuss his fee. He asked us to wait until it was all over and said he would accept whatever we thought his services had been worth.

He soon became a more enthusiastic (and informed) defender of academic freedom than any of us had thought possible, fighting for the principle with the zeal of the newly converted.

HAL LEWIS

Santa Barbara