HLS Receives $10M Donation

Harvard Law School announced Wednesday that it has received an anonymous donation of $10 million in honor of Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’62, to fund research and a faculty chair in his name.

The donation will finance an endowed professorship and support teaching and research activities, conferences, and fellowships in constitutional law.

Steven Oliveira, the law school’s dean for development and alumni relations, declined to comment on what connection the benefactor had with Tribe or the Law School, saying only that the donor “is obviously someone who is an admirer of his work and career.”

The donation—one of the largest gifts tied to an endowed professorship in the history of the Law School—comes at a time when educational institutions around the country are slashing budgets due to shrinking endowments.

“This is a huge gift even for an institution like Harvard Law School,” Law School Professor Richard H. Fallon said.

Although some major donations include both pledged and secured amounts and can take years to finalize, this gift has been completely secured, Oliveira said.

He added that the donation was unaffected by current economic conditions and will be divided between funding the professorship and related activities, though administrators have not yet determined how the funds will be divided.

Until Tribe retires, the professorship will be called the Thurgood Marshall Professorship of Constitutional Law. Upon his retirement the position will be renamed the Laurence H. Tribe Professorship of Constitutional Law.

Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor, is the second most cited constitutional scholar in the country and garnered increased media attention during the past two years as a result of his connections to President Barack Obama. During his time at the Law School, Obama served as Tribe’s research assistant and later called the professor one of his mentors at the school.

Dean of the Law School Elena Kagan and Obama’s Solicitor General-designate also studied under Tribe at the Law School.

Fallon, also a professor of constitutional law, praised Tribe’s work yesterday, saying that his contribution to the field made it only fitting that a Law School professorship bear his name.

“It is obviously a profound tribute to Professor Tribe who has been an absolute mainstay of the constitutional law curriculum,” Fallon said. “He’s a scholar who has been the inspiration for a number of faculty over the years.”

—Staff writer Elias J. Groll can be reached at egroll@fas.harvard.edu.