Professor Robert J. Reinstein -- Title VII Expert

Congratulations, Professor Reinstein, on the publication in the December 2009 issue of the American University Law Review of your paper "The Limits of Executive Power."

Professor Reinstein succeeded Peter J. Liacouras as Dean of Temple University Law School, where I earned my law degree in 1982.  I had Professor Reinstein for a course in Constitutional Law and in Employment Discrimination (Title VII and other employment law statutes) (with fellow student Eva Bleich, Esq., who wrote a paper on comparable worth for female workers). 

He has been a member of Temple’s Law faculty since 1969 and teaches in the areas of constitutional law, political and civil rights, employment discrimination, federal jurisdiction and jurisprudence. He has also taught at the Georgetown University School of Law, the University of California Hastings College of the Law, the University of Tel Aviv Buchmann Faculty of Law, Temple University Japan and Temple University Rome.

Mr. Reinstein graduated in 1965 from Cornell University and received a B.S. degree with distinction. His undergraduate major was Engineering Physics, and he was awarded a John McMullen Scholarship. In 1968, he received a J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he held a Felix Frankfurter Scholarship and served in the Harvard Legal Aid Office. He then clerked for United States District Judge Frank A. Kaufman in Baltimore.

From 1970 through 1977, while a member of the Temple Law School faculty, Mr. Reinstein was a consulting attorney to the NAACP. He brought and tried numerous civil rights cases, including major class actions which successfully challenged employment discrimination against African-Americans in the Philadelphia Police and Fire Departments, the Pennsylvania State Police and the Operating Engineers Union Local 542. Mr. Reinstein also represented Senator Mike Gravel before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers litigation.

While on leave from Temple from 1977 through 1980, Mr. Reinstein worked in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. During the first two years of this service, he was a Senior Attorney in the Division's Appellate Section and represented the United States in major civil rights cases concerning employment, education and voting discrimination. During the second two years of this service, Mr. Reinstein was Chief of the General Litigation Section and was responsible for enforcing the federal civil rights laws in the areas of education, housing and credit. He received the Meritorious Service, Outstanding Performance and Special Commendation Awards and was selected as a charter member of the Senior Executive Service.

Mr. Reinstein returned to the faculty of Temple Law School in 1981 and was appointed University Counsel the next year. He served as University Counsel for seven years and was responsible for representing the University, including its Hospital, in all legal matters. He negotiated the agreements that led to the establishment and expansion of the University's campus in Tokyo, Japan. He was instrumental in designing and implementing an affirmative action program for the construction of Temple University Hospital that became a model for major construction projects in the Philadelphia area.

Since 1989, Mr. Reinstein has been a Vice President of Temple University and Dean of the Beasley School of Law. His duties as Vice President include overseeing the University’s international programs. The deans of Temple University Japan (TUJ) and Temple University Rome report to him. TUJ has more than 1,400 students in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka, with undergraduate and graduate degree-granting programs in liberal arts, business, education and law. Temple Rome provides semester-abroad and summer programs to more than 550 American students each year in art, art history, business and law. Mr. Reinstein has also been a member of the University Budget Committee and was chair for two years.

During his tenure as Dean of the Law School, the school has received over $65 million in contributions from graduates, foundations and friends and more than $10 million in federal grants. The endowment has increased from $4 million to over $37 million. Nine new faculty professorships and more than 60 new endowed scholarships for students have been established. The faculty and curriculum have expanded substantially. The size of the full-time faculty has increased from 42 to 55. The Law School has instituted innovative public interest, trial advocacy, international, tax, business law and professional responsibility programs. In 1999, the school began a Masters of Law program in China, which is the first foreign law degree-granting program in that country. The Law School’s physical facilities have been modernized and expanded through the creation of a “smart” conference center (Shusterman Hall, dedicated 1997), the renovation of Barrack Hall as an annex for additional classrooms and offices (dedicated 2002) and the complete renovation of the Law School’s main building, Klein Hall (scheduled for completion this summer).

During Dean Reinstein’s tenure, the Law School has received the E. Smythe Gambrell Award for Contributions to Professionalism from the American Bar Association and the Emil Gumpert Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Trial Advocacy from the American Trial Lawyers Association. The Law School’s trial advocacy program is regularly rated first in the country in the U.S. News and World Report and other rankings. The Law School has recently been ranked by The National Jurist as sixteenth in the country in the availability and use of technology.

Mr. Reinstein has received a number of awards for public service, including an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Elizabethtown College. In 1999, members of the Law School’s faculty, administration and staff created through their personal contributions the endowed Robert J. Reinstein Scholarship in Law, in honor of his first ten years as dean. In 2002, the Prime Minister of the Peoples Republic of China presented Mr. Reinstein with the National Friendship Award. He is the first person to receive that award for contributions to the development of the rule of law in China.