Christopher Edley, Jr., a civil rights expert and policy advisor who worked closely with three Democratic presidents on six presidential campaigns and served as innovative dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He died Friday in Stanford, California. 71.
His wife, Maria Echaveste, who served as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, said at the hospital that the cause of death was complications from surgery.
Mr. Edley spent most of his career teaching, including 23 years at his alma mater, Harvard Law School, but his career spanned the boundaries between academia and politics.
In the late 1970s, he worked on the White House domestic policy staff, specializing in issues such as food stamps, child welfare, and President Jimmy Carter's disability. More than a decade later, he took a leave of absence from Harvard to become deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton.
Both roles came after serving as top Democratic campaign advisers, roles also played by Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, Howard Dean and Barack Obama.
In both cases, he is known as an ardent defender of liberal policies on race, especially affirmative action, positions that often put him at odds with centrist Democrats who seek to soften the party's civil rights stance. I will do it.
When Mr. Clinton appointed Mr. Edley in 1995 to oversee an overhaul of affirmative action under the slogan of “fixing, not ending,” Mr. Edley made sure that few changes were needed. did. And he resisted pressure from within the White House to engage with critics of affirmative action and other civil rights issues, excluding them as dangerously disloyal.
In 1991, he, along with three other black professors from prestigious law schools, testified against the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, arguing that Justice Thomas, then a federal appellate court judge, had no right to be fair. argued that it was too politically partisan. This decision is one he has criticized for many other black conservatives.
“While their opposition to these measures is principled,” he said of affirmative action critics writing in The Atlantic in 1997, “certainly their real purpose is to protect white men. to protect the current distribution of privilege and opportunity that has produced an elite of people in virtually every field. ”
By that time he had returned to Harvard University. Alarmed by impending lawsuits threatening affirmative action in college admissions, Edley and colleague Gary Orfield join University Presidents' Urgent Report to discuss plans if the courts eliminate racial preferences in education. convened a group.
They found that there was no plan and, in fact, very little information about the civil rights situation and race-related policies in general. In response, Mr. Edley and Mr. Orfield founded the Civil Rights Project. This project has produced dozens of influential books, papers, and conferences over the years and has served as a model for creating research programs within law schools.
Mr. Edley did something similar after becoming dean of Berkeley Law School in 2004. He established a series of policy-oriented centers on campus focused on issues such as the environment and technology. He also significantly expanded the school's classroom space and library, and created grants and scholarships to support students interested in public interest work.
“He was a truly transformative dean,” said Irwin Chemerinsky, current dean and a classmate of Mr. Edley's at Harvard Law School.
Edley resigned as dean of Berkeley Law in 2013 to pursue treatment for prostate cancer. He returned to teaching in 2016 and became interim dean of the university's College of Education in 2021.
Christopher Fairfield Edley Jr. was born in Boston on January 13, 1953, and his father, Chris Edley Sr., completed his law degree at Harvard University. His mother, Zaida (Coles) Edley, was an actress and speech therapist.
Christopher grew up in Philadelphia and New Rochelle, New York, following his father's career as a prosecutor, a program officer at the Ford Foundation, and chairman of the board of the United Negro Colleges Fund.
He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1973 with a degree in mathematics and economics and then enrolled at Harvard Law School, becoming the first black second-generation student in the school's history. He took a leave of absence in 1976 to work on Carter's presidential campaign and joined Carter after graduating in 1978, earning a law degree and a master's degree in public policy.
After Mr. Carter lost re-election, Mr. Edley joined the faculty at Harvard Law School, where he developed specializations in education, civil rights, and administrative law. Among his students was Mr. Obama.
Mr. Edley's first two marriages ended in divorce. He met Echaveste when both were involved with President Clinton. They married in 1999. Along with her, he is survived by her son, Christopher Edley III, from his second marriage. He and Echabeste have two children, Elias and Zara. Grandchild. and his sister Judith Edley.
While remaining at Berkeley as dean, Edley worked closely with the Obama campaign as an advisor and later became an internal member of the transition team. However, he resisted entreaties to join yet another White House team, preferring to remain focused on civil rights issues in California.
“This was ground zero for the opportunity struggles that defined the civil rights agenda,” he told the New York Times in 2007. “The challenges in our education, health care, immigration, and criminal justice systems here in California speak to the struggle for racial and ethnic justice today.” ”
