David Currie
University of Chicago law professor David Currie just died. He taught me about Constitutional law. I still remember how much time we spent on pre-Justice Marshall cases. I didn't even know there was a Supreme Court before Marshall.
I remember having a nice discussion with him about positive Constitutional rights--we disagreed on some points, and even though I was just a student and he'd published on the issue, he still listened and didn't dismiss me out of hand.
He was known for wearing hats. One day, all the students in class wore various odd hats in tribute. For all I know this was done every year, but he seemed suitably surprised.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:49 AM
2 Comments:
I was saddened to hear of Professor Currie's death but happy to hear that he was around for the last 2 decades. I had thought he was ill and like the recently-deceased Professor Bernie Meltzer, I had assumed he had passed on years ago (I guess its a human fallacy to view what we think as our own distant past as everyone else's distant past too). I was not a big fan of Professor Currie's first year Con Law class (I think it was the first year they tried it) but I really enjoyed his upper level Con Law class in Equal Protection, which to echo LA Guy's thoughts, he conducted in a smiling searching energetic manner in a slightly more intimate setting (50 students instead of 150) with a more "friendly" Socratic method as opposed to the typical variety.
I had professor Currie for Con Law too. I have a great picture of hat day in his class. Compared to other professors I had first year (Epstein, Wood, and others), his class was the most like what I expected Law School to be like. I enjoyed his class, though i didn;t take another class from him while I was there.
I suspect LA Guy, New England Guy and I were at the school around the same time (20 years ago - just had our reunion). If you want to lift the veil of annonymity, here is a non-descript email address I can respond to - hellfahrt@comcast.net
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