Addendum to Prosser and His Influence

In our article “Prosser and His Influence,” we stated that William Prosser “accepted a visiting offer” from Harvard Law School for the 1947–1948 academic year,” and also stated that when “Prosser visited Harvard he was clearly a candidate for a permanent position.” It turns out that Prosser was more than a candidate for a permanent position on the Harvard faculty; he had already been given a permanent offer. We found this information out in a way that may be of some interest. Recently a trove of letters written by Prosser was given to the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. Professor Christopher Robinette, who is preparing an article on Prosser, learned about the letters, looked at them, and told us about a 1952 letter Prosser had written to the President of the University of California, Robert Sproul, in which Prosser said that he had “walked out” of a permanent position at Harvard to take the deanship at Berkeley Law. Prosser added that he was only the third person in the history of Harvard Law School to leave after having been given a permanent appointment. We were skeptical about Prosser’s candor in the letter, and decided to see if the Harvard Law School archives might have information on the matter. We subsequently were granted permission to have Professor Andrew Kaufman of the Harvard law faculty look at the faculty minutes for the 1947 and 1948 calendar years. Professor Kaufman found that on January 28, 1947, Dean Erwin Griswold reported that the Appointments Committee had recommended an offer to Prosser, and the offer contemplated a permanent appointment. The faculty approved the recommendation. The minutes also indicated that in June 1948, Griswold referred to a vacancy created by Prosser’s resignation. Finally, the minutes indicated that during the 1947–1948 academic year, when Prosser was teaching full-time on the Harvard faculty, he attended only one faculty meeting.