John R. Kramer (August 17, 1937 – March 7, 2006) served as the 19th dean of the

Tulane University Law School Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States. In addition to the usual common ...

from 1986 to 1996, and previous to that was an associate dean at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

. At Tulane he started a law clinic to serve low-income people in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and made Tulane the first law school in the United States to require a specific number of community service hours for graduation. Under his leadership, African American students came to constitute a greater percentage of the law school student body than in any other non-historically black law school. A cheerful and outspoken liberal, he relished controversy. He publicly defended the

Tulane Environmental Law Clinic The Tulane Environmental Law Clinic (TELC) is a legal clinic that Tulane Law School has operated since 1989 to offer law students the practical experience of representing real clients in actual legal proceedings under state and federal environmenta ...

when it ran afoul of powerful chemical and oil companies in Louisiana. He also defended the Tulane Appellate Advocacy Program's involvement in a Supreme Court suit against a local utility. During his tenure, Tulane published the nation's first gay law journal. He was succeeded by Tulane Law School Dean Edward F. Sherman.

Education and early life

Mr. Kramer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1958. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Cambridge University in 1958-59 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1962. He clerked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

, who later became the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1965, he became counsel to U.S. Rep.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was t ...

(D-N.Y.) on the House Committee on Education and Labor, handling anti-poverty legislation and the first Higher Education Act. In 1987, Kramer was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, John R. 1937 births 2006 deaths Tulane University Law School faculty Tulane University faculty Harvard Law School alumni Deans of law schools in the United States Deans of Tulane University Law School 20th-century American academics