By Katie Clary
Staff Writer
Even 2,500 miles away, acclaimed constitutional law scholar Douglas Kmiec couldn’t resist Pepperdine calling him back.
“Hiring someone of Professor Kmiec’s caliber is rare for any school; it’s a delight to do it twice over,” said Dean of Pepperdine Law School Richardson Lynn in a university press release.
The law school welcomes back Professor Kmiec after his two year stint as dean of the Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington D.C.
During that time, Kmiec raised Catholic University Law School’s student selectivity considerably, boosting applications by 30 percent.
“Washington D.C. is in the center of enormous political and legal activity,” Kmiec. Said.
He taught only two Metro stops away from the Supreme Court. His students hobnobbed with Justices Kennedy and Scalia in the classroom. He testified in Supreme Court cases. Why would an expert constitutional law scholar leave this legal beehive?
“Pepperdine in (it’s) own way is at the center of things,” he said. “But we’re at the center of making faith important in professional study and higher education.”
Kmiec quoted C.S. Lewis, saying Pepperdine cares about the things that “really matter.”
“No other institution can match that,” he said.
Returning to Pepperdine also gave Kmiec the chance to keep in contact with what really matters in his own life: his family.
“I didn’t want to live with a continent separating us,” he said.
Kmiec and Carolyn, his wife of 30 years, lived in Washington D.C. with the youngest two of five kids while the other three studied or worked in California.
“I didn’t want our family time together to be defined by just those free weekend minutes available on Cingular,” he said.
“Many people (at Catholic University) would have liked us to stay longer, but they understood our motivation to return to Pepperdine,” he said.
Additionally, Kmiec is now grateful for a chance to help plan his daughter’s wedding in mid-October.
Dean Lynn anticipates short- and long-term benefits for Kmiec’s law students, citing his well-connected career and standing as a nationally known scholar.
“He’s an incredible teacher,” Lynn said. “Every student has a unique experience.”
Kmiec brings nearly three decades of nitty-gritty experience to the classroom. Between 1985 and 1989, he served Presidents Reagan and Bush as the primary constitutional legal counsel. Prior to Pepperdine, he taught at the University of Notre Dame for nearly 20 years.
In addition to writing three books and dozens of scholarly articles, he has frequently appeared on NPR, “Nightline,” “Fox News with Brit Hume” and “Jim Lehrer’s Newshour.”
Kmiec also said he continues to write columns for the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and a syndicated Catholic newspaper.
“I love taking scholarly ideas that are long, wieldy, complex and squeeze them into 800 words,” he said. “Your classroom becomes a city, even the nation.”
He prides himself on being available to “the press people” as an immediate resource. It’s not unusual for him to conducting impromptu mini-lectures on law and politics to media personalities over the phone. All this provides practical fodder for classroom discussion.
“Any class is more interesting if linked up to a contemporary issue,” he said.
Kmiec took an example from last week, when his Basic Law class examined the constitutional implications of removing the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Judicial Building.
“You can take one news story and teach for an hour from it,” Kmiec said. “And of course, we did.”
Kmiec remains busy, and the months ahead look busier. He resumed the Caruso Family Endowed Chair in Constitutional Law, officially returning to Pepperdine on Aug. 1. He started teaching the Basic and Advanced Constitutional Law courses a few weeks later.
In the coming months, the Kmiec family will move into the new faculty housing on the Drescher Graduate Campus and Professor Kmiec hopes to teach courses at the School of Public Policy as well.
Contemplating his future plans at Pepperdine, Kmiec responded confidently with a question.
“How long will I stay? Why would anyone leave such a place?”
September 11, 2003