"Vanessa’s rage against the machine never got in the way of being kind" -Helen H & Steve L

We are lucky to know Vanessa each on our own and also as a couple. Steve reports:

I first met Vanessa circa 1987 as part of what passed for a hiring process at the fledgling CUNY School of Law. Janet Calvo (with whom I’d been collaborating on some litigation while on leave from Legal Aid) invited me to help run an immigrants’ rights clinic at CUNY, and Vanessa apparently was tasked with vetting prospective hires. She grabbed me for an impromptu interview in a packed cafeteria at a legal services conference Godeski and I were attending somewhere upstate. After the first few questions, Vanessa began to nurse Darrow, and since (to society’s collective shame) public breastfeeding back then was nearly taboo, I wondered whether this might be some sort of test – to gauge my reaction and see if I was “CUNY material.” I learned soon enough that, no, that wasn’t it at all – it was just one example of the countless ways that Vanessa insisted on standing by her sense of right and principle, fearlessly, no matter the array of contrary traditions, conventions, or pressures. (I first heard the phrase “speaks truth to power” as a reference to Vanessa. The phrase that comes to mind from my cultural tradition is “she don’t take sh*t from nobahdy.”)

On that particular day, I also learned that an “informal chat” with Vanessa was a deeply rigorous, probing, and thoughtful exchange, far more so than most of the faculty appointments processes that I’ve since witnessed. Fortunately, she gave me a pass -- perhaps swayed by the fact that Godeski had already taken my line at Bronx Legal Aid and I might otherwise have had nowhere to go. (Many years later, Helen and I repaid a tiny portion of this debt, sponsoring Vanessa for her admission to the bar of the United States Supreme Court -- though with the disgrace that institution has since brought on itself, we imagine Vanessa might as soon burn her certificate on the Court’s steps than hang it on her wall. Note to Vanessa: if that’s your inclination, count me in.)

CUNY Law School in those early days had a kind of energy and intensity I’d never seen before and have never experienced since – sometimes chaotic, sometimes beautiful, always fluid, always on the edge. (Barely a month would go by without the New York Post demanding the law school’s closure). Vanessa was one of the handful of folks that I knew well when I entered that cauldron, since we were then among the few clinical teachers (there were only two clinics – Health in the Workplace and Immigrants’ Rights.) I am grateful to this day that she looked after that anxious and often perplexed newcomer in the rough and tumble of that place and time. Most memorable, though, are the outsized contributions Vanessa made to the development of the law school. Vanessa was fiercely dedicated to the institution, its mission, its values, and its students – she was always “all in,” in many ways the soul of the place; certainly one of its most brilliant architects and defenders.

Years later, when governance of the law school was more firmly in faculty hands, some of us periodically floated to Vanessa the idea of returning to CUNY, fully understanding that most likely this was too much to ask. Alas, it was. When, as has often happened, the law school faced internal or external assaults on it values and mission, I’d often ask myself how Vanessa would respond, and wondered how these struggles would have played out had she been “on the barricades” with us. Our loss; Pace’s gain.

Helen and I have been fortunate to have remained in Steve and Vanessa’s personal and professional orbit over the years. Vanessa has always been a loyal friend – even across expanses of time out of touch. Emails unexpectedly appear – often around Steve’s birthdays, or as part of her tireless organizing against the latest injustice or to effectuate a worthy advance, large or small. I came across an old email I sent to Vanessa that (after a legal conversation) proposed we all get together for dinner the following week … with the plaintive plea “preferably before midnight this time” – a scenario no doubt familiar to many of Vanessa’s friends.

Some years back, after learning fortuitously that Vanessa was being considered for an award, but that the committee was no longer accepting recommendations, I quickly sent off this note:

"Vanessa Merton is one of the most extraordinary law teachers and social justice practitioners that I have encountered in my twenty-five years of teaching. I became acquainted with Vanessa during the early years of CUNY Law School, where she was an intellectual and moral leader of that fledgling and (in my humble opinion) critically important institution; for me and many others she was an exceptional colleague and mentor and has continued to inspire even after she left our faculty.

Those who know Vanessa’s work are awed by her energy, dedication, intelligence, and generosity. To give just one example of the latter: a thorny conflict of interest question arose in my clinic, though with implications for all of our clinical programs. I emailed Vanessa -- who had been involved with a related question while serving on a bar association ethics committee -- asking only for a quick impression. What arrived the next day was a four-page, single-spaced, sourced and hyper-linked response laying out a brilliant, textured, thoughtful analysis – typical of Vanessa. The astounding part is that I knew Vanessa was deluged with work in her own clinic at that moment; but she walks through walls for the cause so to speak. Again, this is just one example of many, and emblematic of Vanessa’s way of being.

At a time when some have candidly worried about the distancing of clinical legal educators from front-line social justice work (I’m thinking of that article by Jane Aiken and Steve Wizner), Vanessa has continued to dive into new areas of law, take on new struggles, wade through the swamps, thickets and trenches with her students and clients, all the while bringing the same extraordinary passion to the endeavor that has been her trademark for well over thirty years. I truly believe that recognizing her extraordinary contributions and extraordinary lifelong commitment to social justice work and progressive law teaching would be most fitting."

Thank you for it all Vanessa.

And Helen adds:
I first met Vanessa through a photograph. She probably was in her twenties, maybe early thirties, and wearing a cape that made her look fierce, fearless, and frightening. I thought: this is not someone to cross. I don’t remember when we actually met—was it at CUNY? I came to realize she was funny and fun, but even so, not someone to cross. And she set her own rules—dinner at 7 meant dinner at 10; meeting at a jazz club for the first set somehow became the second set. In conversation she directed a pitch perfect anger against the world’s cruelty, crassness, and corruption, and her emails—frequent, often sent in the middle of the night—were true calls to action. She knew all along to act locally and think globally. That RFK Jr was a fake. That mothers should be able to nurse their babies at work. That it was worth giving up a little sleep (ok, a lot of sleep) to try to right some wrong. But Vanessa’s rage against the machine never got in the way of her being kind and a great listener, and generous even on the little things (ok, it was a big thing to me—advice on college applications). So I echo: thank you for it all, Vanessa.

Love,
Helen H & Steve L