Dean Griswold Appointed Solicitor General

For the last 21 years, Dean Erwin N. Griswold has directed the Law School through a period of tremendous growth. He will soon leave and return to the office he left in 1934: this time to head it as Solicitor General of the United States.

He will bring to that office the integrity and straightforwardness that have earned him the complete confidence of all his colleagues during what was at times a very difficult period.

In 1954 when Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was attacking Congressional witnesses' use of the Fifth Amendment, Griswold was a forceful defender of the constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Attacked Corruption

On Edward R. Murrow's See It Now television program, he attacked the "corruptive investigating practices of headline-seeking Congressional committees." In a speech at Mt. Holyoke College in 1954, he proposed a seven-point plan for curbing the powers of one-man subcommittees such as McCarthy's.

But when he assumed his post in 1946, Griswold's immediate problem was the post-war Law School. The construction begun in 1948-49 of five new dormitories--Ames, Dane, Holmes, Shaw, and Story-- went far in providing for Law School students the living comforts enjoyed by undergraduates.

In 1949, he instituted a major innovation in first-year teaching that had the class meeting in groups of 20 for weekly tutorial sessions with teaching fellows. In 1950, the first women were admitted to the Law School.

Just at the end of last year, second-year courses were made entirely elective, as had the third-year courses been in 1960. Third-year students can now choose from nearly 60 courses and seminars.

Expands International Studies

The most important curricular change under Griswold has been the growth in International Legal Studies. Aided by a $2 million Ford Foundation Grant in 1955, the fledgling program of International Legal Studies was housed in a new wing of Langdell Hall in 1958 and its courses and seminars steadily increased until they now number 24.

Griswold was born in East Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1924. He is a registered Republican