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An Appreciation of Clark Byse
By Robert A. Gorman
When the history of the AAUP in the twentieth century is recounted, one of the giants of that story will be Clark Byse. Sadly, Clark passed away on October 9, 2007, still young at heart at the age of 95. He lived a full and energetic life, as a great and fabled law professor and as a dedicated citizen of the wider professoriate. I know very well the former Byse, as he was my first-year Harvard Law School teacher in Contracts (which I not long after taught as well, relying heavily on my student notes). He was mesmerizing—and frankly, a bit scary—as a classroom teacher, pounding on his desk, raising his voice, thrusting his fist, often playing for laughs; I stole those techniques, too. Beneath the gruff theatrics was, I came to know later, a person of unbounded kindness and generosity. Indeed, it was Clark who was my principal booster as I thought about law teaching and ultimately landed a job at the University of Pennsylvania. In his later years, after leaving the Harvard classroom, Clark was honored regularly and showered with affection and praise by students, colleagues, and administrators at Harvard (and at other law schools where he studied or taught). It has been frequently said that Professor Kingsfield of the novel and film The Paper Chase was patterned after Clark—but Clark never humiliated students in the Kingsfield fashion, nor did Kingsfield show the warmth of spirit that was Clark’s.
I tell these Harvard stories because they are mirrored in Clark’s service to the AAUP—where, too, his dedication and his loyalty ran deep, his contributions were highly influential, and his leadership style was, well, very much as it was in the classroom. For more than thirty years, Clark was an active and visible citizen of the AAUP, in part at the campus level and more particularly at the national level. Clark served as president of the Harvard University AAUP chapter in the mid-1950s. From 1957 to 1961, Clark was a member and then chair of the Committee on Professional Ethics. He then assumed An Appreciation of Clark Byse the responsibilities, all the while holding his day job at Harvard, of the Association’s wise attorney, the general counsel, from 1961 to 1964. The general counsel gives advice on such wide ranging matters as contracts with third parties, the legal relationships between and among the Association and its constituent bodies, the preparation of briefs in which the Association appears as amicus curiae, and legal issues arising at meetings of the Council and committees. The position has never been easy—and its occupant, after being tested, often goes on to other AAUP positions of great importance.
Clark did not wait, because during his entire three-year term as general counsel, he also served as a member of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure—and he went on to serve as the chair of that august body, central to the Association’s mission, from 1964 to 1966, and then again in 1976 and 1977. It was during the former period that Committee A came to shape its profoundly important Statement on Extramural Utterances, the purpose of which was to clarify those provisions of our 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure that relate to the faculty member’s exercise of freedom of speech as a citizen.
Clark’s annual reports as chair of Committee A are as refreshing as a brisk autumnal breeze. There is the helpful and concise laying out of the context of the matter under discussion; the sharp focus on the issue to be decided; the judicious assessment, without hemming and hawing, of the arguments on all sides; the commitment to fair treatment, to the right solution; and the guidance for future behavior and thought, conveyed with force and with clarity of language. Clark’s demeanor as a committee chair had an even sharper impact. Sanford Kadish, professor and dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley—also a former AAUP president and Committee A chair— described, in a 1980 tribute, Clark at the head of the committee table: “Coaxing, warning, challenging, cheering, chortling, snortling, dissenting, assenting, admonishing, demolishing, all in due proportion, and all with a fierce and feisty toughness of mind that left you sometimes speechless but always admiring. He always preferred being right and being straight to being loved, and therefore was among the most beloved.”
At the conclusion of his earlier term as Committee A chair, Clark was elected president of the Association, a position in which he served from 1966 to 1968. In his presidential address, Clark responded to those who decried the challenge in courts to a range of institutional decisions affecting in particular the rights of students—who, at the time, were seen by many as irresponsible crybabies. The full address rewards reexamination today for its probing thoughtfulness, judiciousness, and soundness. Here is a sample:
Perhaps one of the reasons I do not blanch at the prospect of judicial review is that to me “due process” is not a legal octopus about to strangle the academic community with its tentacles of insensitivity, conflict, obtuseness, technicality, wrangling, inflexibility, expense, and delay. Rather, I view due process not as an enemy but as an old and trusted friend. . . . Rather than “viewing with alarm” and casting due process and the judiciary in the role of hobgoblins about to destroy the academic community, I take pride in a society and a legal system which insists upon fair play for students.
Here’s to Clark Byse. May we recall as an example his fifty years of distinguished and inimitable service to the AAUP, and his more than sixty years as a member of the profession. In both places, he cared deeply and gave much.
Robert A.Gorman is Kenneth W. Gemmill Professor Emeritus at University of Pennsylvania Law School.
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