BARBARA ARONSTEIN BLACK

Barbara Aronstein Black, dean of the Columbia University Law School, was the first woman named to head one of the nation's leading law schools. A Columbia Law School alumna, she was appointed to the George Welwood Murray professorship in legal history at her alma mater in 1984. Less than two years later, after Columbia Law Dean Benno Schmidt, Jr., accepted the presidency of Yale University, Black was asked to become head of the Columbia Law School.

Always a good student, she went to Columbia Law from Brooklyn College, she says, primarily because her father and two brothers were in law. At Columbia she met Professor Charles L. Black, Jr., whom she married in 1954. In 1956, she left Columbia to begin raising their family.

Nearly ten years later, she returned to academia when she began studying for the doctorate in history at Yale University. In 1974 she became lecturer in history at Yale. Two years later she was named assistant professor of history, and, in 1979, she was promoted to associate professor of law.

Among her many accomplishments, she has been president of the American Legal History Society and a member of the board of trustees of the Law and Society Association, served as editor of the Columbia Law Review, and been a member of the editorial board for Law and History Review. A recipient of the Federal Bar Association Prize of Columbia Law School, Dean Black was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Laws by New York University in 1986.

BLACKWELL RECIPIENTS

• February 3, 2021
  Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• January 22, 2015
  Dr. Janet L. Yellen

• November 10, 2013
  The Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jefferts Schori

• October 27, 2011
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver

• April 23, 2009
  Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

• April 24, 2008
  Dr. Wangari Maathai Sc.D.'94, P '94, P '96

• April 27, 2007
  Dr. Priscilla A. Schaffer '64, Sc.D. '94

• September 7, 2004
  Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris

• September 9, 2003
  Loretta C. Ford

• September 4, 2001
  Madeleine K. Albright

• May 15, 1998
  Billie Jean King

• February 10, 1996
  Wilma Mankiller

• September 23, 1993
  Barbara Jordan

• September 27, 1991
  Margaret Chase Smith

• February 22, 1991
  Dr. Antonia C. Novello

• February 19, 1988
  Barbara Aronstein Black

• October 9, 1985
  Cicely Saunders

• March 8, 1985
  Sandra Day O’Connor

• February 11, 1984
  Hannah Holborn Gray

• February 26, 1982
  Agnes George de Mille

• February 15, 1980
  Mary Douglas Leakey

• September 30, 1977
  Mary S. Calderone

• October 3, 1975
  Antonia Brico

• Janurary 23, 1974
  Frances Keller Harding

• May 28, 1973
  Judith Graham Pool

• June 8, 1972
  Marian Anderson

• April 10, 1972
  Mary Lasker

• June 13, 1971
  Mina Rees

• June 14, 1970
  Helen Brooke Taussig

• June 15, 1969
  Georgiana Sibley

• June 16, 1968
  Constance Baker Motley

• September 8, 1967
  Catharine Macfarlane

• July 10, 1966
  Fe del Mundo

• June 13, 1965
  Annette LeMeitour-Kaplun

• June 14, 1964
  Margaret Mead

• June 9, 1963
  Marty Mann

• June 10, 1962
  Frances Perkins

• June 18,1961
  Leona Baumgartner

• June 12, 1960
  Miki Sawada

• June 14, 1959
  Elisabeth Luce Moore

• September 27, 1958
  Gwendolyn Grant Mellon