JAMES O. FREEDMAN, former dean of Penn Law and a leader of two universities who showed an unwavering commitment to egalitarian and broadminded education, died last March at the age of 70. According to Penn Law Dean Michael Fitts, he was “a passionate advocate for the fundamental values of a liberal education” who “will be remembered here at Penn Law as a distinguished scholar of administrative law, as an incisive teacher, and, perhaps most importantly, as simply a fine human being.”

Freedman is perhaps best known for his battles against conservatism at Dartmouth, which reached a boiling point in his public criticism of The Dartmouth Review, the college’s historically conservative student newspaper. During his eleven-year tenure, Freedman undertook a controversial campaign to overhaul the school’s anti-intellectual and chauvinist reputation. By the time of his retirement, Dartmouth had achieved gender parity in the student body and employed a higher proportion of female tenure-track professors than any other Ivy League school.