Law

Law Professor and Urban Education Advocate to Receive Education Law Center Award

The Education Law Center (ELC), whose legal and policy achievements on behalf of New Jersey’s public school children include the landmark Abbott v. Burke rulings, will honor its founder and first director, Professor Paul Tractenberg of Rutgers School of Law–Newark, on April 28, 2015.
 
Professor Tractenberg will receive the Morheuser Humanitarian Award for his dedication to the advancement of the educational rights of students in New Jersey’s public schools. The award is presented in memory of Marilyn Morheuser ’73, Tractenberg’s former student and research assistant and ELC’s long-time executive director. One of the law school’s most distinguished alumnae in public interest law, Morheuser worked with the ACLU and NJ Public Defender’s Office prior to her 1979 appointment as ELC executive director. At ELC, she was mainly responsible for the creation and execution of Abbott v. Burke until her death in 1995.
 
Professor Tractenberg is Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor and Alfred C. Clapp Distinguished Public Service Professor of Law. A member of the faculty since 1970, he established the Education Law Center in 1973 and served as its director for three years. He has played an integral role in the public school funding cases Robinson v. Cahill and Abbott v. Burke, including arguing many times before the Supreme Court on behalf of the student plaintiffs in Abbott. He also is the author of numerous books, articles, and papers on education law; a frequent lecturer; and consultant and adviser to many national, regional, and state organizations and agencies.
 
Over the years Tractenberg’s focus on improving urban public education has expanded from advocacy, teaching and scholarship to applied research on education law and policy. In 2000, he became founding director of the Institute on Education Law and Policy (IELP), an interdisciplinary research project at Rutgers University–Newark.
 
ELC’s annual awards ceremony and reception will take place at the Rutgers Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in New Brunswick. The event will begin at 4 pm with a lecture by Children’s Defense Fund president and founder Marian Wright Edelman and a response by Professor Tractenberg. In addition to the award to Tractenberg, during the 6 – 8 pm reception the ELC will present its Education Justice Award to Edelman. 
 
For more information on the event, visit www.edlawcenter.org.