Architects of Affirmative Action Panel: September 15, 2018 at UCLA Law School

Free registration here.

Now available: The Integration of the UCLA School of Law, 1966-1978, Architects of Affirmative Action, by Miguel Espinoza

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In 1966, a group of UCLA law school professors sparked the era of affirmative action by creating one of the earliest and most expansive race-conscious admissions programs in higher education. The Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) served to integrate the legal profession by admitting large cohorts of minority students under non-traditional standards, and sending them into the world as emissaries of integration upon graduation. Together, these students bent the arc of educational equality, and the LEOP served as a model for similar programs around the country. Drawing upon rich historical archives and interviews with dozens of students and professors who helped integrate UCLA, this book argues that such programs should be reinstituted—and with haste—because affirmative action worked.

Special discount from publisher through 12/1/18: The Integration of the UCLA School of Law – Promotional Flyer (1)

2015.08.29: Angela Y. Davis: Honor Leon Letwin By Reinstating Steven Salaita

The following message from Angela Y. Davis was presented at the celebration of Leon Letwin’s life, held at UCLA on August 29, 2015.

Angela Davis, 1969

To the Family and Friends of Leon Letwin,

I wish I could be with you in person as you collectively evoke the phenomenal life and legacy of Leon Letwin. Although I am not able to be present today, I do want to offer a few reflections. I knew Leon as a man who helped to inform trajectories of social justice for more than a half century, and specifically as one of the driving forces behind the UCLA campaign that defended my right to teach. Shortly after I arrived on campus, facing a torrent of anti-communism unleashed by the Regents’ decision to fire me, it was Leon, as chair of the Committee on Equal Opportunity, who stepped up to write an official letter to the Vice-Chancellor in which he made the still valid argument that:

“[M]inority candidates will, with some frequency, come with unconventional political backgrounds and views as judged from majority perspectives. Regentally imposed political tests which assault the academic freedom of all will fall upon such candidates with unusual severity. If a faculty member can be fired for entertaining divergent views about the structure of our society and the solutions to its problems, this recruitment will become a mockery, as will our general claim to academic integrity.”

As I think back on that period and on the role Leon played in safeguarding my right to teach—along with others in the Law School such as Henry McGee, Michael Tigar, and Dick Wasserstrom, as well as faculty from Philosophy and other Departments—I must say I am very glad that I stumbled into the controversy engineered by the Regents at that particular moment in time. If the lessons Leon taught us about organizing for social justice were invaluable forty-five years ago, they are equally relevant today as we defend faculty members such as Steven Salaita, who continue to come under attack for their divergent views.

Steven Salaita, 2015

There is a reason why I evoke the name and current struggle of Steven Salaita, recently fired by the Trustees of the University of Illinois after tweeting opposition to the attack on Gaza last summer. The very last time I saw Leon, we were both present at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, linked together once more by the rising efforts to generate solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. He was truly my brother in struggle and I shall never forget him.

Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Prof. Emerita, UC Santa Cruz

2015.07.13: Leon Letwin (1929-2015)

Photo credit: Rick Clarke

An expert on evidence, civil procedure, constitutional law, and criminal law, Leon Letwin was on the faculty of UCLA Law School for more than fifty years. A lifelong social justice activist, he pioneered law school affirmative action programs for both students and faculty, was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, and was at the forefront of defending the rights of political protesters, criminal defendants, women, high school students, and many others.

Family Background

Leon Letwin was born on December 29, 1929 to Bessie (née Rosenthal) (1898-1987) and Lazar Letwin (née Litvak) (1892-1957), who came from the Jewish shtetl (town) of Mogilev-Podolski in the Ukraine. His parents had participated in the Russian Revolution of October 1917, and narrowly escaped an anti-Semitic pogrom during the ensuing civil war by fleeing across the frozen Dniester River into Romania. Arriving in Milwaukee in 1921, they joined the fledgling Communist Party, and later opened Letwin’s Grocery, a small neighborhood store.

Circa 1927: Letwin family in Milwaukee prior to Leon’s birth: L to R: Gertie and Anna Rosenthal, Lazar, Bessie and Bill Letwin (child)

Leon and his older brother, William (1922-2013), grew up during the Depression in a predominantly African American neighborhood on Milwaukee’s West Side. Their parents imbued them with values of compassion and social justice, amidst such events as the Scottsboro Boys case, the rise of the Nazis, the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of China, and formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Circa 1932: The young Leon

Early Activism

Against this background, Letwin became a political activist in his own right during the Second World War, and in 1945, a leader of American Youth for Democracy (AYD), successor to the Young Communist League, when, age 15, he became a freshman at the University of Chicago.

1945: Letwin’s Copy of Ten Days That Shook the World

In that capacity, he organized support for the Allis-Chalmers strike in Milwaukee (1946) and Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party presidential campaign (1948), resistance to universal military training (1948-1949) and opposition to the Broyles Commission witch-hunt against “seditious activities” at the University of Chicago (1949).

As Letwin later recalled, McCarthy-era attacks on civil liberties convinced him to become an attorney: “I went to law school in 1950 because I thought as a lawyer, I would be able to do politically useful things like defend causes under attack that needed defense during a period which seemed to be repressive.”

1949: Letwin’s copy of Black’s Law Dictionary

At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Letwin was on law review, which published his article on Communist registration under the Internal Security (McCarran) Act of 1950. There, he joined the National Lawyers Guild, formed in 1937 as an alternative to the whites-only American Bar Association, and remained a member for the next sixty-five years. In 1952, he graduated second in his class.

At Madison, he was a leader of the Labor Youth League (LYL), which had succeeded the AYD. In 1952, he married fellow LYL leader Alita Zurav (born 1932). Their activities included protest against the Korean War (1950-1953), the draft (1951), white supremacy (1953), execution of accused atom-spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1953), Sen. Joe McCarthy (1954), and lynching of Emmett Till (1955).

Upon graduation from UW Law School, Letwin joined the firm of prominent Milwaukee labor and civil liberties attorney Michael Essin. In fall 1954, the Letwins moved to New York City, where Leon became New York State LYL chair, and Alita became LYL National Student Secretary.

Their first child, Michael, was born on May 1, 1956, one day after Letwin spoke at a May Day rally in Union Square. Two more sons followed, Daniel (1958) and David (1960).

In 1957, the Letwins left the LYL, then dissolving under the dual impact of McCarthyism and admission of Stalin’s crimes. But they refused to disown their friends, fellow activists, or social justice principles. As Letwin wrote in 1963, responding to Harvard Law School faculty interrogation about his political views:

“I have not replaced my past dogmas with a new set of dogmas of the opposite political tint. While some of my goals have changed, and certainly my ideas as to how to achieve them, I have not lost my concern for objectives such as racial equality, civil liberties, peace, and the desirability of public ownership and responsibility in many areas of our economic life.”

In 1958, Letwin rejoined the Essin law firm in Milwaukee. He also served as a volunteer public defender, and advocated the need for full-time indigent criminal defenders. “It will be said these programs are costly,” he wrote in a letter to the Milwaukee Journal in 1960. “The only thing we can’t afford is to have a man’s guilt or innocence determined by his financial capacity.”

But he soon tired of private practice. “I was beginning to evaluate every personal injury that walked in with glee,” he later recalled, “so I figured it was time to go somewhere else.” As a result, he chose to pursue a career in legal education.

FBI COINTELPRO Target

But not if the FBI could help it. Government records show that the Bureau had tracked Letwin since 1943 at age thirteen (for subscribing to the Sunday Worker). In the early 1950s, Alita and Leon Letwin were placed on the FBI’s “Security Index,” a list of political dissidents marked for illegal future mass detention; they remained under FBI, CIA, and/or Army Intelligence surveillance through at least the mid-1970s.

In 1975, the U.S. Senate Church Committee hearings revealed that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had made Letwin a target of the notorious Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which covertly pressured universities to blacklist him.

Despite COINTELPRO, Letwin received post-graduate appointments in 1962-1964 at Harvard Law School, and then a teaching position in 1964 at UCLA Law School, where he ultimately received tenure.

But the witch-hunt was not yet over. In 1965, the California State Senate Un-American Activities subcommittee falsely implied that he and UC Berkeley Prof. Leon Wofsy — the Letwins’ longtime friend and political mentor — had engineered the 1964 Free Speech Movement.

Law School Years

Letwin could not take credit for the FSM, but he lost little time bringing the issues of the day to academic life. In 1966, he joined the faculty of Harvard Law’s Intensive Summer Studies Program for African American college students. Upon his return, he successfully pioneered the UCLA Law affirmative action program, arguably the first formal law school affirmative action program, and certainly the most innovative and expansive. In 1968, he became director of the Council on Legal Education (CLEO) at UCLA.

The goal, he explained, was “to move more aggressively to open the door to higher education for minority groups.” And move aggressively he did. In October 1967, he joined calls on university officials to confront discrimination in off-campus student housing.

Responding to the April 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he and colleague Herbert Morris wrote: “The death of Rev. King is a horribly painful reminder of where we have failed. . . . What can we do, for example, to open more widely the doors of the University to Negro, Mexican American and other non-white, non-middle class students at every level, undergraduate and graduate? What can be done to insure that our faculty and administration has a composition more in keeping with the diverse make-up of our society?”

When Chicano students walked out in June 1968 to protest their underrepresentation in the program, Letwin voiced his support: “I think that the walkout demonstrates the strength of feelings on the part of both the blacks and the Chicanos. And they have a right to be concerned.”

In November 1968, he called for California law schools to increase minority student enrollment to twenty-five percent, and to reduce reliance on standardized tests that had a discriminatory impact. On December 3, 1969, as chairman of the Academic Senate’s Equal Opportunity Program (EOP), he warned: “There is a terrible state of affairs here. We have a white middle class faculty.” He staunchly defended affirmative action against the backlash that began in the late 1970s.

He also advocated inclusion of women at the Law School, and was an ardent feminist in all areas of his life.

Broader Activism

For Letwin, affirmative action was but one aspect of the era’s broader social movements.

In November 1965, he was a faculty cosponsor of the first UCLA teach-in against the Vietnam War. The Letwin family frequently participated in political protest, including the June 23, 1967 demonstration where the LAPD notoriously attacked thousands protesting President Lyndon B. Johnson’s appearance at the Century Plaza Hotel, a watershed event that foreshadowed the police riot a year later at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

In 1968, he and other Law School professors represented students disciplined for protesting on-campus recruitment by the Dow Chemical Co., which produced napalm for the U.S. Air Force. On May 16, 1969, the Committee of Concerned Faculty was formed at Letwin’s home to defend UCLA students protesting the use of lethal violence by police and National Guard a day earlier at People’s Park in Berkeley.

Commenting on the diversion of funds from social programs to the first moon landing in July 1969, Letwin argued that the space program, “illustrates a perverse hierarchy of values. We’re going to the moon for all the wrong reasons. We’re spending vast sums on the wrong thing in pursuit of the wrong goals.”

In fall 1969, Letwin played a leading role in the Academic Senate’s defense of Angela Davis, a fellow COINTELPRO target and prominent African American radical activist, whose UCLA teaching appointment was under attack from Gov. Ronald Reagan and the UC Regents.

Law Practice

This work was accompanied by establishment of a law practice with Letwin’s close friend and colleague, Richard Wasserstrom [and here], who represented members of the Black Panther Party’s L.A. chapter against government attack.

In 1970, Letwin & Wasserstrom took up the case of UC Santa Barbara Prof. William Allen, who was summarily fired by Gov. Reagan for participating in student antiwar protests at Isla Vista.

In 1971-1972, Letwin, Wasserstrom, and law school colleague Hank McGee assisted the defense team for Angela Davis, who was tried and acquitted for murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy charges in the August 1970 failed attempt to free Black Panther Party leader George Jackson and the other Soledad Brothers.

In May 1972, they defended UCLA student Harry Alexander, who was badly beaten and arrested by police during campus antiwar protests. In 1973, they assisted the legal defense of Daniel Ellsberg, who was prosecuted for releasing the Pentagon Papers, which revealed that that the Johnson Administration had “systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress” about the Vietnam War.

Letwin & Wasserstrom frequently represented the next generation of Letwins and their fellow youth activists. From 1971-1976, they fought school censorship of the Red Tide, a Marxist high school underground newspaper, which was headquartered in the Letwin home at 2226 Manning Ave.

In March 1973, they represented Letwin’s teenage son, Michael, fellow Red Tide member Karen Pomer, and American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Archie Fire Lame Dear, who, along with thirteen others, were arrested at gunpoint by the FBI under the “Rap Brown Act” for transporting food and medicine to AIM’s occupation at Wounded Knee.

Letwin & Wasserstrom’s victories in the California Supreme Court included Pitchess v. Superior Court, 11 Cal.3d 531 (1974) (expanding criminal defendants’ right to discovery of prior misconduct by police officers), and Bright v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist., 18 Cal.3d 450 (1976) (striking down prior censorship of underground high school student publications). In later years, they handled death penalty appeals.

Teaching and Scholarship

Letwin’s political concerns were reflected in his legal scholarship (much of it posted on this site), which examined such issues as affirmative action, representation of indigent criminal defendants, preliminary hearings in Los Angeles, free speech rights of high school students, evidence of “unchaste character” in rape cases; and impeachment of criminal defendants with their prior convictions.

Letwin produced two textbooks, Assignments in Trial Practice (Little, Brown: 1964), and Evidence Law: Commentary, Problems and Cases (Matthew Bender: 1986). His entry on evidentiary privilege appeared in the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (Macmillan: 1986).

He also argued that legal education should encourage students to think critically about moral, political, and social values, even to the point of challenging their professors’ beliefs — including his own:

“I cheerfully concede that some of my suggested answers may be ‘wrong’ or at the very least debatable,” he wrote. “In that case, I use student doubts about my analysis as an occasion for classroom discussion. . . . I attempt to focus on the political and social choices implicit in many doctrines of relevancy, resting as they do on powerful but often unarticulated premises about the way the world is or ought to be.”

Among students and colleagues alike, Letwin was widely admired for his combination of enthusiasm, intellectual rigor, wit, and humanity. Students elected him UCLA Law School Professor of the Year in 1975, and he received the Law School’s prestigious Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1983.

From 1998-2002, he was UCLA Coordinator for implementation of the Native-American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires federally funded institutions to return cultural items to indigenous peoples.

Later Years

Colleague Richard Wasserstrom once remarked, “Leon Letwin is one of the few people around who actually acts out of those principles he supports, and he does so with remarkable consistency.”

Letwin adhered to those principles for the rest of his life, speaking out against nuclear weapons, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, U.S. intervention in Central America, University of California investments in apartheid South Africa, right-wing attacks on the California Supreme Court, the Gulf War, the “International War on Terror,” and denial of Palestinian rights.

In 2011, he and Alita visited the Manhattan encampment of Occupy Wall Street, and in 2012 made his final appearance at a May Day rally at New York City’s Union Square, more than half a century after speaking there in 1956.

Appreciated for his warmth, humor, wisdom, humility, and principles, Letwin is survived by Alita, his wife of 63 years; his sons, Michael, Daniel, and David Letwin; their partners, Ellen Dichner, Eva Letwin, and Kristin Horton; and his grandchildren, Brian Letwin, Chau Nguyen, Andrew Letwin, Nicholas Letwin, and Timothy Letwin.

2022.05.25: Michael Letwin Oral History @Activist Video Archive

Related:
The Red Tide (1971-1981)
Michael Z. Letwin
Alita Zurav Letwin (1932-2020)
Leon Letwin (1929-2015)
Zurav

1997.03.19 – Leon Letwin Resume – OCR

Download in PDF format: 1997.03.19 – Leon Letwin Resume – OCR_Redacted

Raw text:

 

NOTE

March 19, 1997

In addition to the UCLA courses taught through 1993 (see Resume), I taught Civil

Procedure at the UCLA Law School during 1994, 1995 and 1996.

In respect to Professional Activities, I have (together with Richard Wasserstrom) completed a death penalty appeal to the California Supreme Court (People v. Sims) and a Petition for a

Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Wasserstrom and I are now engaged in another death penalty appeal to the California Supreme Court in People v. Sturm.

I have made a check mark before each item in the attached resume that more or less bears directly on the subjects of Criminal Law or of the death penalty in the United States.

Leon Letwin

 

=====

.. .. . . :. -r. –. :.: : :~.. :.I. : :.::,IU CLSAC HOOFLL AW

NAME: Leon Letwin

ADDRESS:

BIRTH DATE:

2226 Manning Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90064

December 29, 1929

EDUCATION:

Universityo f Chicago,P h.B., 1950

University of Wisconsin, LL.B., 1952

Harvard University, LL.M., 1969

PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT:

Legally related employment:

Private practice of law, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1952-54: 1957-62

Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, 1963-64

UCLA SERVICE

ACADEMICA ND ADMINISTRATIVET ITLES:

Associate in Law, 1964-65

Acting Associate Professor of Law, 1965-68

Professor of Law, 1968-

LAW SCHOOL COURSES TAUGHT: (§8)

Date No. ~

Yr. 1964-65 110. LEGALR ESEARCHA NDW RITING

Yr. 1965-66 100. CONTRACTS

~ 1966 230. TRIAL AND APPELLATE PRACTICE

Yr. 1966′”67 14~. PROCEDURE

F-W 1966-67 211. EVIDENCE

~ 1967 249. TRIAL TACTICS AND TECHNIQUE

Yr. 1967-68 145. PROCEDURE

~ 1967 249. TRIAL TACTICS AND TECHNIQUE

w 1968 211. EVIDENCE

F 1968 211. EVIDENCE

Units

2

s

3

7

5

4

7

3

5

5

F 1968 338. SEMINAR..I NTERNALL AWO F ACADEMIC

INSTITUTIONS 2

~1969 145. PROCEDURE 6

1969 249. TRIAL TACTICS At’JD TECHNIQUE 3

F-W 1969-70 100. CONTRACTS 8

w 1970 338. SEMINAR-INTERNALLA W OF ACADEMIC

INSTITUTIONS 2

s 1970 211. EVIDENCE 5

F-W 1971.. 7 2 14S. PROCEDURE 6

.. ‘ .

June 4, 1993

Enrollment

85

§1 .. 65

66

§C • 77

§A -lOO·

97

§C – 77

23

61

109

19

§2 -112

30

§3 – 66

8

§1 – 88

§1 .. 81

. .. – ‘ •–-i–,.... . . . . . ~. •• 1 ·~r — .·,.r JC.:~~~ ::.A UCLSAC H” ‘v“‘v v“L‘ F L AW

L. Letwin • resume 2

F 1971 211. EVIDENCE 5 108

~ 1972 249. TRIAL TACTICS AND TECHNIQUE 3 §1 – 26 s 1972 338. SEMINAR-INTERNALL AW OF ACADEMIC

INSTITUTIONS 2 10

F 1972 211. EVIDENCE s 167

W-S 1973 145. PROCEDURE 6 §4 – 86

~ 1973 121. CRIMINAL LAW II 3 §3 – 86

F-W 1973-74 145. PROCEDURE 6 §4 – 97

F 1973 211. EVIDENCE s §2 -157

~ 1974 121. CRIMINAL LAW II 3 §2 • 80 w 1975 211. EVIDENCE s §2 • 83 s 1975 206. CONSTITUTIONAL AWI I 3 95 s 1975 309. SEMINAR CONSTITUTIONAL

LITIGATION 2 8

1975 206. CONSTITUTIONAL AWI l3 3 ll8

197S-76 145. PROCEDURE 6 §1 – 86

1976 211. EVIDENCE 5 48

1976 211. EVIDENCE 5 160

1976-76 145. PROCEDURE 6 §4 – 1S

1977 148. CONSTITUTIONALA W I 4 §1 – 66

197i 121. CRIMINALL AWI l ~., §4 .. 88

1977 338. SEMINAR-INTERNALLA W OF ACADEMIC

INSTITUTIONS 2 9 w 1978 211. EVIDENCE s 123 Yr. 1978-79 14S. PROCEDURE s §3 – 80

~ 1978 563. SEMINARI N CRIMINALA ND CIVIL

s PROCEDURES IS. YEAZELL 2 16 1978 211. EVIDENCE 3 §1 • 74 s 1979 211. EVIDENCE 3 §1 – 74 F-S 1979-80 14S. CIVIL PROCEDURE 5 §3 – 86 s 1980 211. EVIDENCE 3 109 }: 1980 145. CML PROCEDURE 5 §3 – 99 i-,} 1981 211. EVIDENCE 3 §1 • 98 1981 503. SEMINAR/CRIMINALLA W 2 8

F 1981 Sabbatical Leave s 1982 211. EVIDENCE 4 §2 -106

F 1982 145. CMLPROCEDURE s §2 – 83 s 1983 5.64. SE~NAR-EVIDENCE 2 12 s 1983 211. EVIDENCE 3 119 F 1983 14S. CMLPROCEDURE s §4 • 79 s 1984 211. EVIDENCE 4

F 1984 145. CIVILP ROCEDURE 5 §1 – 82 s 1985 211. EVIDENCE 4 §1 • 92

F 198S 211. EVIDENCE 3 §1 • 111 F 1986 211. EVIDENCE 3 §2 – 63 s 1986 Sabbatical Leave

p 1986 145. CIVILP ROCEDURE s §1 – 74 s 1987 211. EVIDENCE 4 §2 .. 12S

. . . . . – . .. – . -·.. .. i.t,.,’. ·.;J·,. :.·1•1; –.. –~ .··. · .r,. : UCLA,~. . C111H1 “‘I“I ‘FL L W A ………. •••••.• w \,/\I\,/

L. Letwin – resume

Yr. 1987-88 145. CIVIL PROCEDURE 6

s 1988 211. EVIDENCE 4

F 1988 14S. CIVIL PROCEDURE 5

F 1988 201. CONSTITUTIONAL AW II §2 3

s 1989 211. EVIDENCE §2 4

F 1989 145. CIVIL PROCEDURE §2 5

s 1990 Absence of Leave

F 1990 211. EVIDENCE §2 4

s 1991 145. CIVIL PROCEDURE §10-12 5

1..—r 1991 S03. SEMINAR • CRIMINAL LAW 3

F 1991 120. CRIMINAL LAW I §7-9 4

s 1992 Sabbatical

J__:;,– 1992 120. CRIMINAL LAW I §4-6 4

s 1993 211. EVIDENCE §2 4

LAW SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP: (§9)

Admissions and Standards Committee, 1966-68, 1968-69 (Chair), Fall 1985.

Special Comminee on Minority Group Admissions, 1966-68 (Chair).

Committee on First-Year Curriculwn 1967-68.

Law School Grading Revision Committee, 1968-69.

Standards Committee, 1971-72; 1973-74; 1975-76; 1990-91.

Curriculum Committee. 1965-66; 1972-73 (Chair); 1974-75; 1982-83 (Chair).

LEOP Committee, 1976-77.

AppointmerusC ommittee,1 977-79;1 979-80( Chair); 1983-85:1 989-90.

Student-FacultyR elationsC ommittee,1 980-81( Chair); 1981-82{ S); 1986-87( Chair).

Admissions Reading Subcommittee. 1980-81.

Externship Cormnittee (Chair), 1987-88; 1991-92 (S).

Advisor, National Lawyers Guild, 1987-88.

Placement Committee. 1988-89.

Public Interest Committee, 1992-93 (Chair).

OTHER UNIVERSITY TEACHING: (§11)

Doctoral Committee (Psychology), 1979-81.

Doctoral Committee (Education), 1981-82.

ACADE~UCS ENATEC OMMITTEEM EMBERSlilP(:§ 12)

Committee on Equal Opponunity (Chair), 1968-72; 1973-74.

University Welfare Committee, 1968-69.

Statewide Committee on University Welfare, 1968-70.

Committee on Status of Women and Equal Opponunity. 1972-73, Chair).

Ad Hoc Affirmative Action Conunittee, 1972-73.

Ad Hoc Committeeto Reviewt he In ResidenceP rofessorS eries, 1977-78.

Privilegea nd Tenure Committee,1 977-80,1 978-79( Chair); 1979-80; 1981-83.

Statewide Senate Privilege and Tenure Committee, 1979-82.

Legal Advisor to U.C. Santa Cruz Privilege and Tenure Committee,

in connection with hearings in two cases before that Committee, 1982-83.

3

81

126

36

136

32

130

82

10

77

69

83

.– .‘ –.:

L. Letwin – resume 4

Grievance Procedure Review Committee, 1987-88; 1988 (Chair).

Academic Personnel Procedure Committee (Zabin Committee). 1987-88.

Privilege and Tenure Grievams’ Committee, 1992-93.

OTHER UNIVERSITYS ERVICEA ND ACTIVITIES(:§ 14)

Chancellor’sF aculty-StudentS teering Committeeo n MinorityR ecruitmenta nd Curriculum,

1967-68.

Chancellor•sS teering Committeeo n Ethnic Programs Task Force. Summer, 1968.

HearingO fficero n a non-academiacp peal,M arch-April1, 969.

Faculty Advisory Committeet o the Afro-AmericanC enter, 1969-70,1 975-76.

Chancellor’s Conunittee on University Goals, 1969-70.

Chancellor’s Affirmative Action Coordinating Council for Campus Equal Opportunity

Programs, 1971-72.

Chancellor•Cs ommittee on Status of Women, 1972-74.

Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Affirmative Action, 1976-78 (Chair, Winter 1978).

Affiliated faculty member of Graduate School of Education, 1978-81.

Special Hearing Committee to decide recommendations in relation to medical school charges

again.sat facultym ember,F ebruary 1984.

Committee to conduct Five-year Review of Ethnic Centers. 1984-85.

Ad hoc Personnel Review Committee, 1986-87 (Chair); 1987-88 (Chair).

MEMBERSHIPSIN PROFESSIONALS OCIETIES:( §1 6)

Wisconsin Bar Association.

California Bar Association.

Associationo f AmericanU niversityP rofessors.

SERVICET O PROFESSIONALS OCIETIESA ND ORGANIZATIONS:( §17)

Associationo f AmericanL aw Schools:

Committee on Minorities, 1968-68.

Subcommitteoe n Curriculuma nd MinorityG roups, 1968-69.

Curriculum Study Project, 1969-70.

Panel Member, AALS Convention, December1 968–MinorityS tudents and the Law.

SERVICET O EDUCATIONALA ND GOVERNMENTAALG ENCIES: (§19)

Faculty Member, Harvard Law School Special Summer Program to encourage

Negro college students to undertake careers in law (Summer, 1966).

Member. Board of Directors, Los Angeles Neighborhood Legal Services Society, Inc. 1966-

67.

Director,L egal EducationO pportunityP rogramo f Southern California, 1968.

L—Member, City Attorney’s Advisory Committee on Criminal Procedures~ 1973-74.

Director, Council on Legal Education Opportunity 1977 Summer Institute (UCLA).

Board Member, Student Press Law Center. Washington, D.C., 1977 .. 80.

Appeared as attorney before California Supreme Coun in three cases of public importance:

~a) Pitchess v. Echeveria, 11 Cal. 3d S31 (1974) (upheld discoverability of prior

complaints against police charging brutality, in a battery against police officer

case).

. . . . . . – ·:-·.. .– ·•·• •· . · · ·r — .•• , UCLAS CH,. . ,.. W . .. –~. .–· :-·. ,.: “.... ;. , ...,•. :, Ou•1“L1‘F LA

L. Letwin • resume 5

b) Bright v. L. A. Unified School District, 18 Cal. 450 (1978) (affirming the

right of public school children to distribute independent ( ”underground 1

‘)

newspapersw ithoutp rior censorshipb y schoolo fficials),

California v. McKeller, hearing granted before Californian State Court (issue:

the constitutionalityo f the Californias tatutoryr ape law in light of itS

discriminatoryc riminalizationo f sexuala ctivityf or the male).

~pointed to represent, together with Richard Wasserstrom, a death row inmate in his appeal

to the California Supreme Court, February 1988 {People v. Sims). Case pending.

INVITED LECTURES, PAPERS AT MEETINGS, AND SIMILAR ACTIVITIES: (§20)

Series of lectures on Constitutional Law, University of Guadalajara, Mexico, October, 1966 .

.b za”co ..d irectorw ith ProfessorK ennethG rahamo f the Los Angelesp ortiono f a nationals tudys ponsored

by the Georgetown University Criminal Law Center on the preliminary hearing in criminal

cases, 1967.

Participant in Conferenceo n Educationo f UnderprivilegedP ersonsf or the Legal Profession

sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity, Legal Services Program, May 15-17.

1967. Washington~ D.C.

Speaker, Law School Forum: “Civil DisobedienceD: isqualificationfo r Membershipi n the Bar?”,

February 22, i968.

Lecturer to Chilean students on State Department tour, February 271 1968.

Participant,A rrowheadC onferenceo n 11Rights and Responsibilitieos f Members of the Campus

Community”; Panelist. “Problems Under the Present System of Student Conduct Disciplinary

Procedures,” 1968.

Conference Director, Conference of California Law Schools, ”Minority Studerus and the Law

Schools/ UCLA, November 1968.

Panel member, Upstairs. “Violence as a Method of Social Change, 11 January 17, 1969.

Moderatoro f discussiong roup, Los AngelesD emocraticP any Conference”, PoliticalP oliciesT oward

Present Forms of Dissent on Campus,” February 8, 1969.

Conference Director, Conference of California Law Schools, at UCLA, November 1968, ”Minority

Students and the Law Schools.”

Participant, 24th All University Faculty Conference on “Urban Crisis” at UCR. March 23-25, 1969.

Speaker, “Should There Be Preferential Treatment for Minority Citizens?”, at Valley Jewish

Community Temple, May 30, 1969.

Panel member, Western Conference of Law Schools, “Students Power and Participation, 11 March 28-

29. 1969.

Consultant and Panel Member to CLEO Conference, Atlanta, GA., March 1S. 1969.

”Free Press and High School Newspapers, How Much Freedom Should They Have?”, Constitutional

Rights Foundation, Law Day Conference, 1973.

Lecture on press censorship, NationalA ssociationo f Journalism,T eachers and Students. Marriott

Hotel, Los Angeles, April 4, 1975.

Panel on Student Rights, ACLU, April 14, 1975.

Panel on ..T he ConstitutionG oes to School,” ConstitutionaRl ights Foundation, Law Day Conference,

May 3, 197S.

Lecture on Free Press and Expression, Student Rights-Conference, ACLU, May 17, 1975. ·

. . . . – .. -·.. . – t;: ,. : .i ~ \f : ~ C·J UCAT SCHQiiti’F’,L AW –·-········-~· J., \I \I

L. Letwin – resume

Colloquium: Rights of Students, UCLA Teaching Colloquium, May 19. 1975.

Law SchoolC ommencemenAt ddressa s “Professoro f the Year, “June 15, 1975.

ParticipantD, iscussiono n~ Case, N.B.C., Channel4 , October1 6, 1976.

Participant. symposium on 11The Student Press/ KHJ, December 27. 1976.

Colloquium: The ~ Decision,U CLAG raduateS choolo f EducationC olloquium.N ovember3 ,

1977.

Debate on~ Decision, ACLU, Westwood,S eptember2 5. 1977.

Speaker,1 1LegalF orcesA ffectingD ecisionM aking”i n conferenceo n ”ForcesA ffectingD ecision

Making by SchoolB oards and Administrators”s ponsoredb y USC School of Educationi n

• ~ cooperationw ith L.A. CountyB oard of Education,J anuary2 8, 1978.

…,.,…-~peakeLr,a w Women’sU nion, UCLA, Rape Evidence,O ctober2 7, 1980.

6

Over the years, consultant to a number of law firms on various points of law, including the law of

procedure and evidence. In June, 1980, testified as an expert on California procedural law in

a High Court trial in London. Consulted with local civil liberties organizations on cases of

mutualc oncern. Representedc riminald efendantso n a pro bono basis.

Intermittentl aw consultantshipsw ith individuals( non-corporaten, on-business),1 981-82.

Smalla mounto f legal counsellingt o private partieso n miscellaneoulse gali ssues, 1983-SS.

PRIZES,H ONORS,C O~IMENDATIONS(:§ 21

Nominatedb y Law StudentB ar Associationf or DistinguishedT eachingA ward, 1967.

Law School “Professor of the Year, 0 1975.

UCLA Schoolo f LawR utter Prize for DistinguishedT eaching, 1983.

FELLOWSHIPS AND EXTRAMURAL GRANTS: (§22

Approximately$ 85,000 grant from councilo n Legal EducationO pportunity to finance

LEOPSC program, 1968.

S33 ,375 grant from Council on Legal Education Opportunity to finance UCLA/CLEO

Programl, 97i.

• • · • · • – • • ~.-•••••.••.• U\.iw•””I ~l.i&l\.,l,,’l.. Vr .Lu’i4~

L. Letwin – resume

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS:

EvidenceL aw:C ommentarv,P roblemsa ndC ases, MatthewB ender( 1986), 687 pp.

EvidencLea w: Commentarv,P roblemsa ndC asesT, eacher’sG uide, MatthewB ender( 1986).

EvidenceL awiC ommentaryP. roblemsa ndC ases1, 988S JnU2plemMenat,t thewB ender.

EvidenceL aw: Commentary.P roblema nd Cases,1 991S upplementM, atthewB ender.

AssiiJlillentisn TrialP ractice, Little. Brown and Co., (Editor), 1964.

ARTICLES:

“The Representationo f Indigentsi n CriminalC ases,” 23 ~ 6, 1963.

“Communist Registration Under the McCarran Act and Self Incrimination,” 1951 Wisconsin Law

Review 704.

“Canadian Consumer Credit Legislation, 11 BostonC ollegeIn d. and CommL.a w Review. Vol. 8, pp.

201-224, Winter ’67.

“Waiver of Objectionst o Former Testimony,” UCLAL aw ReviewV ol. 15, pp. 118-lSS, 1969.

7

.. _:§s>mPe erspectiveso n MinorityA ccesst o LegalE ducation.”2 Experimenta ngI nnovation1t 969.

~ith K. Graham, 11The Preliminary Hearing in Los Angeles: Some Field Findings and Legal-Policy

Observation,” in two articles, 18 UCLA Law Review, No.4, pp. 636-757 and 18 UCLA Law

Reyiew, No. St pp. 916-961 (1971).

”Regulation of Underground Newspapers on Public School Campuses in California,” 22 UCLA Law

Revjew1 41-218 (1974).

“AdministrativeC ensorshipo f the IndependentS tudentP ress-Demiseo f the Double Standard?”,2 8

S,C. Law Review S6S-S85 (1977); reprinted in 2 Childrens Rights Report (October 1977)

(ACLU Juvenile Rights Project, New York).

“After Goss v. LcmezS: tudentC lassificatioans SuspectC lassification? 11

t 29 StanforLda w Review

627-662 (1977).

~ducation and the ConstitutionalR ighcso f SchoolC hildren1,1 1 ThinkingT, heJ ournal of Philosophv

for Children 11-19 (1978).

”Unchaste Character, 11 Ideology and the California Rape Evidence Lawst S4 So. California Law

Review 35-89 (1980).

0Impeaching Defendantsw ith Their Prior Convictions: Reconsideringth e DangerousP ropensitieso f

Character Evidencea fter Pegplev . Castro,1 8 U.C. Davis Law Journa6l 81-719 (1985).

Entry on “EvidentiaryP rivilege”f or Encyclqpedioaf the AmericanC onstirution6, 61-662( Mac

Millan, 1986).

“TeachingF irst YearS tudents: The Inevitabilityo f a PoliticalA genda,” 10 NovLaa w Journal 645-

646 (1986).

REPORTS, ETC,:

With R. Wasserstrom, “National Goals for Expanding Minority Group Entry into the Legal

Profession: Some Proposals to the CLEO Council,” October l, 1968.

Director’s Report of the Los AngelesC LEO Program( sponsoredb y the Law Schoolso f UCLA,

Loyola and USC), 1968. .

2019.08.25: Leon Wofsy, 1921-2019

Leon Wofsy 

1921 – 2019

Leon Wofsy – scientist, activist, author, and cherished husband, father, grandfather and friend – died on August 25, 2019, peacefully and surrounded by family two days after a stroke. Leon was born in Stamford, CT in 1921. He was raised by parents who, as Leon described them, were deeply committed to building “a gentler world where wars and exploitation would be unthinkable”. Leon shared their hopes and values throughout his life. As a young man, he was leader of the Labor Youth League, which made him a target during the McCarthy period. During that time, and throughout the remainder of his life, Leon demonstrated uncommon courage, honesty, and a willingness to sacrifice in pursuit of the ideals of democracy, racial equality, social justice, and peace.

After almost two decades devoted primarily to radical political activism, Leon returned to school in 1958, received a PhD in chemistry at Yale, and joined the faculty at the University of California in Berkeley in 1964. During his years at Berkeley, he distinguished himself as a scientist through pioneering research on the use of antibodies to deliver effective therapies directly and specifically to the site of disease. His work proved to be visionary in helping to lay the foundation for the later development of ‘precision’ therapies that are now widely used in the treatment of cancer, immunologic diseases, and many other disorders. Also while at Berkeley, Leon was a leader among the faculty in supporting students during the Free Speech Movement, opposing war, fighting apartheid, supporting progressive movements in Latin America, and increasing the representation of women and minorities in the sciences and the broader academic community.

After his retirement from UC Berkeley, Leon wrote extensively on topics related to domestic and foreign policy, including two books, numerous articles, and a blog that was still active in the final month of his life. He never ceased hoping for, and fighting for, a better world. When he could march, he marched. When he could lead, he led. When he could teach, he taught. And when age took him off the front lines, he wrote and continued to inspire.

Leon was the most loyal of friends. He loved music and sports and nature and especially family. He was predeceased by his wife of 67 years, Rosalind Wofsy, and by his daughter Carla. He is survived by his wife, Gail Weininger, his son David, and grandchildren Danielle, Kevin, Susan, and Grace. A memorial gathering will be planned soon. For those who are so inclined, donations in Leon’s honor may be directed to Partners in Health or to the charity of your choice.

Published in San Francisco Chronicle on Aug. 30, 2019

Panel Celebrates Affirmative Action Pioneers (UCLA Law Magazine, Fall 2018)

Panel Celebrates Affirmative Action Pioneers (UCLA Law Magazine, Fall 2018)

From left: Professor Laura Gómez, Miguel Espinoza, Richard Wasserstrom and Wallace Walker at a panel on the history of affirmation action at UCLA Law.

UCLA Law’s remarkable history as pioneer of affirmative action in higher education was the focus of a special presentation that convened in September 2018 at the law school. Nearly 100 members of the law school community participated in a four-hour program inspired by the 2017 book The Integration of UCLA School of Law, 1966-1978: Architects of Affirmative Action.

Written by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miguel Espinoza, the book traces the creation and effects of UCLA Law’s trailblazing Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) through first-person accounts from more than 80 professors and students — including Espinoza’s father, former L.A. Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ’80.

Moderated by professor Laura Gómez, the panel included Espinoza; current faculty members Carole Goldberg and Tony Tolbert; former professor Richard Wasserstrom, who co-founded LEOP; current student Daniel Johnson ’19; alum Wallace Walker ’70, who was in LEOP’s first graduating class; and Mia Yamamoto ’71, who pushed for the inclusion of Asians in LEOP and co-founded the Asian/Pacific Islander Law Students Association at UCLA.

Speakers also celebrated the legacy of a central figure in the book and in the life of UCLA Law, the legendary, late professor Leon Letwin, who spearheaded the LEOP effort. Several members of Letwin’s family traveled to join the event, which was co-sponsored by UCLA Law’s Critical Race Studies program and David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy.

2015.09.13: Professor Fought For Social Justice (L.A. Times)

Professor Fought for Social Justice (OCR)

2015.09.10: Leon Letwin dies at 85; UCLA law professor, activist and Angela Davis defender (L.A. Times)

Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2015

Leon Letwin dies at 85; UCLA law professor, activist and Angela Davis defender

Leon Letwin was a longtime UCLA law school professor who landed on the FBI watch list when he was only 13. (Handout)

By ELAINE WOO contact the reporter

In the 1930s, when other kids his age were reading the comics, Leon Letwin was reading a Communist Party newspaper and accompanying his radical parents to political rallies. His early activism made him one of the younger targets of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which opened a file on him when he was 13.

Although Letwin later backed away from the party, he spent the rest of his life fighting for social justice. In the courts, the longtime UCLA law professor helped win important cases involving the rights of criminal defendants and high school journalists. On campus he helped defend Angela Davis when she was under attack for her militant views.

Despite support from Leon Letwin and others, philosophy professor Angela Davis was fired in 1970. (Associated Press)

He also spearheaded affirmative action in law school admissions, years before most public universities embraced diversity as a goal.

“He thought we should make a difference. Many of us weren’t sure about that,” Henry W. McGee Jr., a former longtime UCLA law professor and one of the first African Americans to win tenure at the university, said of the activism that set Letwin apart from colleagues.

Letwin, who died this summer at the age of 85 in State College, Pa., after a long illness, joined UCLA in the early 1960s. With the civil rights movement heating up, he began to press the university to help prepare minority students for law school.

He became the founding director of the Legal Education Opportunity Program of Southern California, which sought to increase the enrollment of blacks and Mexican Americans at UCLA, USC and Loyola law schools. Letwin launched the program in the summer of 1968 with 40 students  who took classes on criminal, constitutional and tort law and interacted with judges, police officers, prosecutors and other lawyers.

“It was truly a radical move,” said Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Miguel Espinoza, who is writing a book on the effort. “Within a year or two of his hiring, he laid the groundwork for one of the earliest and most expansive affirmative action programs in the nation.”

In operation for a decade, it exposed hundreds of students to the legal profession, including Peter P. Espinoza, a 1980 UCLA law school graduate (and father of Miguel) who later served as supervising judge of Los Angeles County’s criminal courts.

“Leon’s a hero to me because of the impact he had on the law school and the legal profession in general,” Espinoza said in an interview last week.

At Letwin’s memorial service in late August following his July 13 death, Espinoza said he counted about 25 judges and a number of public officials who were admitted to law school after participating in the program.

An expert on evidence law, Letwin also played a major role in Pitchess vs. Superior Court, a 1974 case that established the right of defendants accused of resisting arrest to obtain records relating to complaints of excessive force by a peace officer. The request for such information is now known as a Pitchess motion.

Letwin was born on Dec. 29, 1929 in Milwaukee, where his parents, Bessie and Lazar, settled after fleeing anti-Semitic persecution during the Russian Revolution. As a youth he subscribed to the Communist Party’s Sunday Worker newspaper, the act that drew the attention of the FBI.

At 15, Letwin entered the University of Chicago. He was interested in studying the brain but changed course as the McCarthy-era hunt for Communists and other subversives commenced. “There was a dearth of lawyers defending people who came under McCarthy’s attacks,” Alita Letwin, his wife of 63 years, recalled Monday. “That was the major reason Leon went into law. He felt it was a duty.”

He went on to law school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, graduating in 1952 near the top of his class. With his wife, whom he married that year, he was active in the Communist Party-controlled Labor Youth League. They left the group in 1957, after learning about the brutalities of the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union.

Letwin spent a few years in private practice in Milwaukee, leaving in 1964 to teach at UCLA. He quickly leaped into a number of controversial fights, including defending Davis, a philosophy professor, Communist and member of the Black Panther Party, when Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan advocated her dismissal. Letwin argued in a letter to university officials that firing a faculty member with “divergent views” would make a mockery of academic integrity. With colleague Richard Wasserstrom, he also helped strike down a loyalty oath requirement. Davis was fired in 1970.

A few years later Letwin was one of three attorneys who represented leaders of the Red Tide, a student underground paper, in a case that ultimately went to the state Supreme Court.

Founded in the Letwins’ garage in West Los Angeles by a group of students from nearby University High School, the paper featured radical views on the Vietnam War, abortion and other issues. School authorities barred its distribution on campus, alleging that one of its articles libeled a district employee. In 1976 the court agreed with the students that the school’s efforts to ban the paper amounted to prior censorship.

One of the paper’s leaders was Letwin’s son, Michael, now a public defender in New York.

“The idea we grew up with was you should stand up for what you believe in,” Michael Letwin said. “He would do battle for us with school administration…. That made a huge difference to us.”

Besides his wife and son Michael, Letwin, who retired from UCLA in 1994, is also survived by sons Daniel and David, and five grandchildren.

2015.08.29: Program for UCLA Celebration of Leon Letwin (PDF)

Download: Program (PDF)