Stephen D. Sugarman

During his 50-year career at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Stephen D. Sugarman made enduring contributions to multiple areas of scholarship and public policy. He challenged generations of students with relentless but kind classroom dialogue. And he was a collaborator and cherished friend of countless colleagues at the Law School, across the Berkeley campus, and around the world.

Sugarman, born in 1942, passed away on December 21, 2021, at the age of 79. He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Karen Carlson; their daughter Kate and her husband, Gabriel Lucero; and grandchildren Sophia and Jeremiah. Sugarman’s passion for teaching, scholarship, collegiality, and life continued through his final Torts class in Fall 2021, his final flurry of publications, his final entries into his famous “Berkeley Law Dining Guide,” and his final words of wisdom and good cheer to his colleagues.

Sugarman grew up in the Cleveland suburbs, and won scholarships to college and law school at Northwestern. As he recalled in an interview by the Bancroft Library’s Oral History Center, “I was able to see how I could end up with seven years of education without costing my parents any money. And they were of modest means and I think that meant a lot to me not to have to burden them with any expenses.”

As it turned out, education funding—and fairness in education policy more generally—would become a focus of Sugarman’s academic work and advocacy. His thesis at Northwestern was about school desegregation. As Sugarman described: “I did archival research in local newspapers that were chronicling the desegregation of schools in certain places and I got interested in education policy and discrimination.” Sugarman attended a talk by Fred Shuttlesworth, the civil rights leader whose Birmingham church was bombed in 1958. Sugarman said “I was very influenced by that. I thought, ‘This is interesting. Maybe I could be somehow involved in this.’”

Sugarman would soon have the opportunity to learn more about disparities in education. He impressed his law professor, Jack Coons, whom Sugarman helped to conduct research on funding disparities among Chicago schools. This research, which would broaden to cover funding disparities around the country, formed the basis for the 1970 book Private Wealth and Public Education.

After graduating from Northwestern Law in 1967, Sugarman joined the firm O'Melveny & Myers. Fortunately, his mentor there—Warren Christopher—believed in mixing private practice with public service. He gave Sugarman time to continue to work with Coons, who moved to Berkeley in 1967, and also to serve as Acting Director of a New York state commission on education funding. Together with Coons and litigator Sid Wolinsky, Sugarman successfully argued the landmark 1971 case Serrano v. Priest in the California Supreme Court. They convinced the court that California’s reliance on the property tax system to fund education violated the U.S. and California constitutions because it resulted in disparate access to the fundamental right of education on the basis of wealth.

As part of his work with Coons on education funding, Sugarman helped raise money for a research center at Berkeley called the Childhood and Government Project. He was contemplating another leave from the law firm to direct the project when Berkeley Law Dean Ed Halbach offered him a faculty position instead. Sugarman joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 1972 and would stay there the rest of his life.

Sugarman had other collaborators on education policy who, like Professor Coons, became lifelong friends. As David Kirp, Professor Emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, recalls: “Steve and I came to Berkeley at about the same time, and quickly became friends . . .  sparring about the virtues of vouchers, bonding over our commitment to equalizing opportunity.” Decades into their friendship, Sugarman became a Universal Life minister to preside at Kirp’s wedding.

Mark Yudof, University President Emeritus, is another colleague who first connected with Sugarman over their interest in education policy and came to cherish him for much more: “Steve and I were colleagues and close friends for more than 50 years. He was a brilliant scholar and teacher and a genuinely independent thinker. But what I remember most is his joy de vivre, his fierce loyalty to friends and family, his devotion to Berkeley Law, and his kindness.”

George Breslauer, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former Provost at UC Berkeley, recalled “a brilliant and prolific scholar, a devoted teacher and mentor, as well as a colleague who knew how to build scholarly communities,” adding: “To my constant delight, he was also my next-door neighbor for over 35 years.”

Sugarman continued to contribute to scholarship and public policy on school funding and school choice throughout his career. At an April 2021 event honoring Sugarman, former Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley observed that Sugarman’s work “saved many billions of dollars in social costs” and impacted “millions of lives.”

Education policy was not the only field in which Sugarman made such powerful intellectual and personal contributions. One of his first teaching assignments would spark another career’s worth. Sugarman was assigned to teach Torts, a required first year class. His other teaching over the decades was eclectic, spanning education policy, social welfare policy, sports law, and food law. But Torts was a fixture—the class that gave him the opportunity to welcome new law students into his long-running conversation about how the law protects people from harm. He also welcomed students into his life and home, hosting potlucks and holiday parties.

Tort law would become another focus of Sugarman’s scholarship, if not his affection. One of his first articles on the topic, published in the California Law Review, was boldly titled “Doing Away with Tort Law.” In it, he argued that alternatives to tort remedies—including expanded regulation and social insurance—would better deter and compensate victims of accidental harm.

Notwithstanding this skepticism, Sugarman continued to engage with tort doctrine and policy in his scholarship, which included decades of collaborations with Robert Rabin of Stanford Law School. Rabin wrote in a 2021 festschrift issue of the California Law Review that Sugarman “has been a man for all seasons in the world of tort law.” Rabin observed that Sugarman’s “passion for intellectual engagement, leavened by a disarming modesty and openness to contrary ideas, has been matchless.”

In addition to writing about education policy and torts, Sugarman made significant contributions to the fields of public health and social welfare law. Over his career he authored 18 books and over 200 other publications. As colleagues Dan Farber and Mark Gergen wrote in the festschrift issue, Sugarman’s scholarship “has provided innovative avenues for legal reform, grounded not on political ideology but on a clear-eyed understanding of social problems,” combining “pragmatism with a passionate dedication to social justice.” Reflecting on his work, Sugarman said, “I think there is one theme that runs through a great deal of my work, and it’s that we as a society can do a lot more to improve the lives of the have-nots in our nation, both by enhancing their material well-being and also by empowering them to have considerably more control over their lives.”

Sugarman brought the same energy and generosity that marked his scholarship and teaching to his service to Berkeley Law. He served twice as Associate Dean, from 1980-82 and 2004-2009, and chaired most of the school’s important committees. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky—the eleventh and final dean with whom Sugarman served—described him as “the institutional memory and the conscience of Berkeley Law.”

Sugarman’s service extended well beyond the Law School and included many important Campus and University committees. He particularly cherished relationships he built during 2000-2003 service on Berkeley’s Committee on Budget and Interdepartmental Relations. As Janet Broughton, Professor Emerita of Philosophy and former Vice Provost, recalls, “Steve and I served together on the Budget Committee, and I’m sure I speak for others when I say how impressed I was by his curiosity, by his sense of fairness, and by the subtlety and intelligence of his reasoning.” She adds that Sugarman “was also a pure delight to work with, and a sweet and generous colleague to boot.” Jasper Rine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Professor of the Graduate School Division of Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, and Development, also served with Sugarman and recalls similar admiration for his contributions: “Every case that Steve was the leader for was an education for the rest of us in the way he dissected the strengths and weaknesses of each case as though it was a case before the court.”

Sugarman nurtured cross-campus relationships during frequent lunches at the Berkeley Faculty Club with colleagues including Rine, who recalls them fondly: “The thing I remember most is his intense interest in anything that came up in our conversations. One doesn't make an off the cuff comment to Steve and expect it to end there. He always followed up with questions which invariably illuminated some dimension of the subject that had passed me by.”

The Faculty Club was one of Sugarman’s many favorite dining destinations. He maintained an online dining guide that featured the same discerning enthusiasm that marked his scholarship and service. A typical entry is concise, useful, and charming: “Great burgers. Fun place. Sit at the bar.”

Sugarman and his wife Karen Carlson loved travel as well as dining. He had visiting appointments at universities around the world, and reflected on this time away with typical candor, good humor, and appreciation:

The weather was never close to being as nice as here except in Tel Aviv. Paris was dark cold and rainy for many months. Florence was sweltering at the end. London got dark around 3:30 pm in the winter. Osaka was horribly hot on arrival so we spent lots of time in our air conditioned flat watching sumo wrestling on TV. But ultimately they were all great places to be and unforgettable parts of our lives.

Sugarman was an unforgettable part of the lives of his family, friends, and colleagues who strive to emulate his model of intellectual and personal generosity. As Berkeley Law colleague Rebecca Wexler captures in her remembrance: “Steve was extraordinarily warm and welcoming to me when I first arrived at Berkeley. He took me to a mid-day concert at the music school, he sat and chatted with me regularly, he had me over to his house for Thanksgiving with his family. I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend time in the circle of his warm and inspiring influence at a formative moment for my career.” Wexler concluded on a note that resonates with all of Sugarman’s colleagues: “He set a tone for what it means to be a caring, giving colleague and teacher.”

 

Molly Shaffer Van Houweling