Podcast: Even at 91, Students are Everything to Guido Calabresi
Federal judge, former Dean, Sterling Professor of Law — Guido Calabresi ’58 has held many titles in a long and extraordinary career. An iconic figure at the Law School, he is known simply as “Guido” and is beloved by generations of alumni and students. For the Law School’s 200th anniversary, he sat down with Dean Heather K. Gerken to discuss his years as Dean and why he’s still active as a judge and professor at age 91 – “because I can’t do without students.”
Guido Calabresi ’58 served as Dean of Yale Law School from 1985 until 1994, when he was named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where he still serves as a senior judge. He is also Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law, “which means that I keep talking,” he quipped. Calabresi has been awarded some 50 honorary degrees from universities in the U.S. and abroad. A legendary professor and a co-founder of the field of law and economics, Calabresi ranks among the most influential legal scholars of his time.
Starting the first loan forgiveness program (12:42)
As Dean, Calabresi started the Law School’s Career Options Assistance Program (COAP) in 1989 for graduates who choose lower-paying positions. COAP was one of the first loan forgiveness programs of its kind and served as a model for similar programs at law schools across the country. Calabresi recalls the resistance he faced in some quarters:
“The University at first voted it down. And so I said ‘I resign. Either you can’t carry out what you promised me, or you weren’t true in promising me.’… Now it’s a wonderful program and idea.”
Related:
Watch: Yale Law School at 200: Guido Calabresi on His Life and Legacy
Restoring the Law School's home (7:25)
Calabresi recalls how the Sterling Law Building was in disrepair when he became Dean, and how he launched a successful fundraising campaign to restore it to its former glory. But his approach may have seemed counterintuitive to some:
“Here was this building that was magnificent and had things which were almost disappearing. Woodwork, the stained glass windows, the ceiling of the Library. And I remembered something [then-Yale President] Whitney Griswold said, ‘When you’re doing something of this sort, do the luxuries first. You will always find money for the necessities. If you do the necessities first, you’ll run out.’ So I did the opposite of what was sensible.”
A different kind of biography (26:41)
Calabresi discusses the process of sitting for interviews over a 10-year period for his biography, meeting every Monday with author Norman Silber. The result is Inside Out: The Oral History of Guido Calabresi. He recalls how his parents fled fascism in Italy in 1939 and arrived in New Haven:
“It begins with me and Italy and anti-fascism, and how that shaped me because we all are shaped by what we have lived… And then coming to America, who helped and who did not. What America was like at that time. Why we stayed, thinking that America was more egalitarian than Italy. And in some ways, it is, and in some ways, it's not.”
Related: Guido’s Tales (Yale Law School news)
A surprise at his last class (21:50)
Gerken recalls planning a surprise for Calabresi after he finished teaching his last torts class in 2021, arranging for more than 150 faculty, staff, and former students to appear on the classroom Zoom screen, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’79. He reflects on his love of teaching and credits his wife Anne for nudging him to take the Dean’s job, which he initially resisted:
“Let me just say this, none of that would be possible without my wife, who — going back to being Dean, I didn't want to be Dean … but Anne said, ‘Do it. You might find that you had some skills you didn't know you had.’ And with her help, it turned out that I did.”
