Michael Wald: The Power of Social Context

Stanford Emeriti/ae Council Autobiographical Reflections

On Nov. 15, 2023, Michael S. Wald, the Jackson Eli Professor of Law, Emeritus, reflected on his 57 years at the Stanford Law School combining research, teaching, and university service. He also described professional periods of leave including at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the San Francisco Department of Human Services. He acknowledged his good fortune as a white male growing up in the 1950s within a highly supportive educational system and community, leading to Cornell University as well as Law and Political Science degrees from Yale University. He contrasted his own experiences with those of highly disadvantaged children who are often trapped on a “school to prison” conveyer belt. He discussed the ways in which his research and involvement in drafting state and national legislation had been focused on bettering the life chances of families and children who must overcome poverty and inequality in order to thrive. Wald reflected dismay over the vast and unintended expansion of the U.S. welfare system over the past thirty years. He stressed that deep interdisciplinary collaborations, such as those he and faculty in the social sciences and medicine had carried out at Stanford’s Boys Town Center for the Study of Children, Youth and Families, will be necessary at universities like Stanford if multiple structural barriers are to be surmounted.