Archives
French to head Baldy Center
By ILENE FLEISCHMANN
Reporter Contributor
Rebecca Redwood French, professor of law and Roger and Karen Jones Faculty Scholar in the UB Law School, has been named director of the Law School’s Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, Dean Makau W. Mutua has announced.
FRENCH
An international authority in law and anthropology, French has done landmark research on the Buddhist legal system of Tibet.
Her appointment will take effect Aug. 16. She succeeds Lynn Mather, UB professor of law and political science, and a distinguished scholar in the area of law and the courts, who came from Dartmouth College to Buffalo to head the Baldy Center in 2002. Mather will remain on the UB faculty.
The Baldy Center is an endowed, internationally recognized institute that supports the interdisciplinary study of law and social institutions. More than 100 UB faculty members from 17 academic departments participate in Baldy Center research, conference and scholarship activities, as do an increasing number of graduate students. The center maintains cooperative ties to other interdisciplinary research centers and co-sponsors a regional network of socio-legal scholars in New York state and Canada. The center also hosts distinguished scholars from around the world as visitors, speakers and conference participants.
“I am delighted that Rebecca French has agreed to lead this crucial component of the Law School’s research mission,” Mutua said. “Her experience in studying comparative law and her enthusiasm for the possibilities of interdisciplinary approaches to the law can only strengthen the unique mission of the Baldy Center at the University at Buffalo and beyond. As we continue to enhance UB Law School’s academic reputation nationally and internationally, the Baldy Center will play an important part in our continued success.”
French joined the UB Law School after serving on the faculty at the University of Colorado School of Law, where she conducted the research for her groundbreaking book, “The Golden Yoke: The Legal Cosmology of Buddhist Tibet.” The project was an outgrowth of her interest in Asian legal systems and her experience at Yale University, where she earned both a master of laws degree and a doctorate in anthropology. A philosophy major as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, she earned her J.D. degree from the University of Washington Law School. She served for three years as a public defender and for four years in general practice in the Pacific Northwest.
French has spent time in India doing research on Buddhism and the law in the Tibetan community there. As an expert in Tibetan law, she has spearheaded the development of the new discipline of “Law and Buddhism,” and has organized the first international conferences and working groups in this area.
French was instrumental in bringing the Dalai Lama, the exiled religious leader of the Tibetan Buddhist community, for a much-heralded visit to UB Law School in September 2006 for the first discussion and conference with the Dalai Lama on “Law, Buddhism and Social Change.” Cambridge University Press next year will publish her edited work, “The Cambridge Companion to Law and Buddhism,” which will be the first comprehensive volume on the topic. She is currently conducting a major research project that brings tools of anthropology to bear on 2,500 cases on religion in the United States.