A Centennial Celebration Featuring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

For 100 years, Rutgers School of Law-Newark has been a pioneer in legal education. The school's distinctive institutional spirit of excellence and reform was present when the school opened its doors as the New Jersey Law School on Oct. 5, 1908 with three faculty members and 30 students. The founders drew inspiration from New Jersey's groundbreaking legal traditions to establish the law school as a center for innovation. One of their early advances was to create a legal education program for women.

Fittingly, a premier event marking the school's Centennial Celebration will be the Feb. 13 symposium "Rutgers School of Law-Newark Celebrates Women Reshaping American Law." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will return to the law school to give the keynote address. It was as a member of the faculty from 1963 to 1972 that Justice Ginsburg began to develop into a leading women's rights scholar and advocate. The symposium also will feature Fred Strebeigh, author of the new book Equal: Women Reshape American Law, and more than a dozen women, several with ties to Rutgers, who have been pioneers in addressing gender discrimination in the legal system and the profession.

Other anniversary events that celebrate the school's core values of teaching, scholarship, service and opportunity include last October's Centennial Seminar on the school's successful commitment to racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and gender diversity, and the upcoming April 3 conference, "The Legacy of Arthur Kinoy and the Inspirational and Collaborative Dimensions of Clinical Legal Education: Honoring 40 Years of Clinics at Rutgers-Newark." A gala to increase scholarship funding also is being planned to cap the Centennial Celebration.