Yesterday, in what turned out to not to be a premature April Fools’ gag, George Mason University announced it will rename its law school in honor of the recently departed Justice Scalia. Scalia joins Charles Widger and S.J. Quinney in the select club of 45 individuals after whom ABA-accredited law schools are named, excluding those law schools deriving their names from their parent institutions (Washington & Lee, Roger Williams, etc.).
The practice of naming law schools after individuals falls into a handful of basic categories: SCOTUS justices (9 schools (but only 7 justices)), other judges (6 schools), Founding Fathers (3), academics (4), rich alumni (14), and random rich guys (6), with a handful of singular outliers. Here is a (lightly researched) list of such schools by category:
U.S. Supreme Court Justices:
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- Sandra Day O’Connor (Arizona State)
- John Marshall X3 (Atlanta/Chicago/Cleveland St.)
- Antonin Scalia (George Mason)
- Louis Brandeis (Louisville)
- Thurgood Marshall (Texas Southern)
- Benjamin Cardozo (Yeshiva)
- Salmon P. Chase (Northern Kentucky)
Judges:
- Jacob B. Fuchsberg (Touro)
- Thomas Cooley (Western Michigan)
- William B. Mitchell (Mitchell-Hamline)
- Claude W. Pettit (Ohio Northern)
- James Gould (USC)
- Walter F. George (Mercer)
- Serranus C. Hastings (UC Hastings)
Rich Alumni:
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- James E. Rogers (Arizona)
- Donald L. Sturm (Denver)
- Michael S. Maurer (Indiana – Bloomington)
- Frederic G. Levin (Florida)
- Robert H. McKinney (Indiana – Indianapolis)
- Francis King Carey (Maryland)
- Alexander Blewett III (Montana)
- J.B. Pritzker (Northwestern)
- Michael E. Moritz (Ohio State)
- Charles Widger (Villanova)
- Robert H. Dedman (SMU)
- James E. Beasley (Temple)
- Dale E. Fowler (Chapman)
- Maurice Deane (Hofstra)
Random Rich Guys:
- Dwayne O. Andreas (Barry)
- Thomas R. Kline (Drexel)
- Shepard Broad (Nova Southeastern)
- William S. Boyd (UNLV)
- S.J. Quinney (Utah)
- J. Reuben Clark (BYU)
Founding Fathers:
- George Washington (American U)
- Thomas Jefferson
- John Dickinson (Penn St.)
School Presidents/Deans/Professors:
- Norman Adrian Wiggins (Campbell Univ.)
- James Kent (Chicago-Kent)
- Verne Adrian McGeorge (Univ of Pacific)
- Paul M. Herbert (LSU)
Civil Rights Lawyer: David A. Clarke (Univ. District of Columbia)
Congressman John J. Duncan (Lincoln Memorial Univ.)
State Governor: Thomas Goode Jones (Faulkner)
Deity/Demigod: Ave Maria