New Dean Is Named at UC Berkeley Law School

UC Berkeley has named John P. Dwyer, a longtime professor and environmental law expert, as the new dean of its 106-year-old law school.

Dwyer will take over venerable Boalt Hall School of Law on July 1, replacing Dean Herma Hill Kay, who has led the school through a period of turmoil over declining minority admissions.

The new dean said Boalt Hall must continue its vigilance to attract more black and Latino studies.

“There’s no magic solution,” Dwyer said, citing the constraints imposed by the 1996 ban on affirmative action. “It requires the kinds of things that Herma’s has been doing: aggressive outreach, aggressive recruiting of students.”

Dwyer’s appointment was met with some controversy, as often happens on the politically charged campus. The Boalt Hall Student Assn. sent a three-page letter Feb. 9 to Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl attempting to torpedo Dwyer’s candidacy by saying he has not shown a commitment to building a racially diverse student body and Boalt’s community legal clinic.

Berdahl, however, said that Dwyer is “superbly qualified to lead Boalt Hall.”

Dwyer said he plans to focus on fund-raising, in part so that Boalt can offer more attractive scholarships to top students and endowed chairs to the most promising faculty.

Dwyer, 48, earned his law degree from Boalt Hall in 1980 and went to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He worked as a public defender in Washington, D.C., before returning to the Boalt faculty in 1984.

He holds a PhD in chemical physics from Caltech and has developed expertise in environmental policy, the handling of toxic substances and regulation of the mining industry.

Dwyer is the coauthor of two books: “Our Town: Race, Housing and the Soul of Suburbia,” and “Property Law and Policy: A Comparative Institutional Perspective.”

His appointment, announced last week, must be confirmed by the UC Board of Regents.