Professor Denise C. Morgan (1965-2006)

Professor Denise C. Morgan (1965-2006)

The trustees, dean, faculty, students, staff, and alumni of New York Law School mourn the death of our beloved colleague, teacher, and friend, Professor Denise Morgan in Chicago on April 7 at the age of 41 . She was an extraordinary colleague.

Professor Morgan wrote extensively about civil rights and equal educational opportunity. Her passionate concern for educational inequality in America turned to advocacy with her involvement in the landmark litigation against New York State to establish equity in public school funding for New York City. The decade-long litigation, Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. New York State, began in 1993 as a constitutional challenge to the state's method of financing public education. Professor Morgan joined the effort in 1995 as an unpaid attorney representing the Legislature's Black, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Legislative Caucus. She developed key arguments in the case, and filed several amicus briefs on behalf of the Caucus. In 2003, New York's highest court issued an important ruling concluding chat the current system of financing shortchanges New York City's schoolchildren, and calling on the scare to undertake sweeping financing reforms. The litigation continues to this day.

Professor Morgan's most recent scholarly work focused on the role of the federal government in protecting individual rights, which she explored as principal editor of Awakening from the Dream: Civil Rights Under Siege and the New Struggle for Equal Justice (2005).

Professor Denise C. Morgan (1965-2006)

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