By Ian Mikrut
Full text article at Penn Carey Law Journal
As a vital hub for academic collaboration, the Legal History Consortium embodies Penn Carey Law’s commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship, uniting the Law School and Penn’s Graduate History Department in the School of Arts & Sciences to foster innovative research, scholarship, and education in law and history.
Karen Tani coordinates the Legal History Consortium. She is the Seaman Family University Professor and a Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with joint appointments in the Law School and the School of Arts & Sciences history department. Her research and scholarship focus on social welfare law, administrative agencies, the role of rights in the modern American State, and the history of disability law in the late 20th century.
Tani assumed the leadership role with the Consortium following the retirement of Sarah (Sally) Barringer Gordon, Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History in 2023. “The greatest gift of my professional life has been to return to Penn and be Sally’s colleague and to play a role in carrying forward the programs, institutions, and traditions that she created,” said Tani, the first graduate of Penn’s JD/Ph.D. program in American Legal History. “Penn’s current reputation as a powerhouse in legal history is almost entirely Sally’s doing—but thanks to her careful stewardship, that reputation has not diminished since her retirement.
“We hope to build out the program further,” Tani added, “broadening our scope and working with new legal historians in training.”
The joint efforts of Tani, Gordon, and Sarah Gronningsater, a history professor in the School of Arts & Sciences, has led to a revamped undergraduate minor in legal studies and history—a shared endeavor between the History Department and Wharton Legal Studies—which has become a vitally important branch of the undergraduate program, with over one hundred students taking legal history classes each semester. Tani has also spearheaded a fledgling JD/Ph.D. program with the Department of History at Princeton University.
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