“Haywood asked "to what extent is it realistic, in a society permeated by racism, to expect that the law or any institution in that society can transcend that racism?" Haywood's answer to that question, as reflected in many of his speeches and writings, was that while law was "not a panacea ... it is too useful a tool to be abandoned.”
The Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession collaborates with CUNY Law to host the W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights. CDLP’s mission directly reflects the vision and values held by W. Haywood Burns. Burns’s contributions as a civil rights lawyer, legal educator, and racial justice scholar focused on training lawyers who understood the racism inherent in the legal system and who were prepared to represent the underserved. The partnership between the Burns Chair and the Center for Diversity in the Legal Profession serves as a tribute to Haywood’s life and legacy and solidifies an institutional home for Haywood’s unfinished work of creating a society that more faithfully reflects the principles of equality, justice, and human dignity.
W. Haywood Burns was a people’s lawyer, professor and civil rights activist who served as the second dean of CUNY Law School and the first Black dean of a New York law school. Before serving as dean, Haywood served on the front lines of the many of our country’s great civil rights struggles. As the dean of the CUNY School of Law, he mentored and inspired a generation of students, many of whom were the first in their families and communities to attend college or earn a law degree. The Burns Chair was first established in 1997, after Haywood Burns’ untimely passing, to honor his legacy. The Burns Chair Program brings a lawyer, activist, or legal educator, who has made important contributions to the discourse on racial, economic and social justice, to the law school as a visiting faculty member to engage in the intellectual life of the law school. The person named as Burns Chair participates in a combination of activities for faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members, such as public lectures/education, symposiums, seminar classes/class visits, social events, and workshops. The Burns Chair Program also provides funded research fellowships to selected students who engage in social justice related legal research and service work under the supervision of the Burns Chair and Burns Program staff.