Message from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, May 10, 2024:
Dear Berkeley Law Community,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that our beloved colleague and former Dean Chris Edley passed away Friday morning.
Chris had an amazing life and career, including being the transformational dean of Berkeley Law.
Chris graduated from Swarthmore College and the Harvard School of Public Policy and Harvard Law School. After that he had an exemplary career in education and public service.
Before coming to Berkeley Law as Dean in 2004, Chris spent 23 years as a professor at Harvard Law School, including co-founding the Harvard Civil Rights Project. He served as dean until 2013. As Dean, he brought about a huge positive change in every field. Aspects of the Law School, ranging from the appointment of many illustrious faculty, to his initiative to build the South Addition (with library and classrooms and café embellishments), to dramatically increasing support for public interest grants for students, to many of the Centers Till construction.
Chris served in White House policy and budget positions under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Chris also held senior positions in five presidential campaigns: policy director for Michael Dukakis (1988); and senior policy advisor to Al Gore (2000), Howard Dean (2004), Barack Obama (2008), and Hillary Clinton (2016). In 1993, he was a senior economic advisor in the Clinton presidential transition, responsible for accommodation and regulation of financial institutions. In 2008, he was a board member with general responsibility for health care, education, and immigration during the Obama presidential transition. In 1993, he was a senior economic advisor in the Clinton presidential transition, responsible for accommodation and regulation of financial institutions. In 2008, he was a board member with general responsibility for health care, education, and immigration during the Obama presidential transition. From 2011–2013, he co-chaired the Congressionally chartered National Commission on Education Equity and Excellence.
Chris was a Fellow or Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; National Academy of Public Administration; Council on Foreign Relations; American Law Institute; Advisory Board of the Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution; and the board of Inequality Media. He is a national associate of the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academies of Sciences, for which he chaired a committee to evaluate the NAEP performance standards, and chaired a committee to design a national system of education equity indicators. .
Since completing his deanship, he has served the Law School and campus in countless ways, including most recently serving two years as interim dean of the School of Education. Chris and Maria Echavest direct the Opportunity Institute.
Chris and I were law school classmates. He has been a dear friend and has provided me with invaluable knowledge and support during my years as a dean. I know I speak on behalf of all of us when we say how much we will miss him.
I will keep you updated about the plans for the monuments.
Sadly,
irwin