Harold Horowitz ’43

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Even if Harold Horowitz had never returned to UCLA, he still would have been one of its most illustrious alumni. As associate general counsel at the department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1961 to 1964, he drafted vital portions of the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and later served on President Johnson’s task force for the War on Poverty. In 1965 he served on the McCone Commission, which investigated the Watts riots. A board member at the Western enter on Poverty and Law since 1967, he was the motivating force behind a lawsuit that led to the reform of the system that finances California public schools. In addition, he is an accomplished scholar in constitutional law and held an appointment a professor of law at UCLA from 1964 to 1990.

To those who have known and worked with him during the 28 years he has been on campus, however, Hal’s most lasting contributions will undoubtedly be the systems he devised and administered concerning faculty advancement and conduct. When Hal became Vice Chancellor, Faculty Relations, in 1974, he inherited a limited set of bureaucratic regulations that overlooked issues of due process and participation of faculty members under review. During his 16 years as vice chancellor, Hal modified, influenced and helped shape UCLA’s entire system of personnel decision making. His approach, based on the premise that the highest standards of fairness and integrity would advance rather than hinder the search for top faculty, created an atmosphere of trust and cooperation and enabled the University to attract a faculty judged by many measures of excellence to be among the preeminent in the nation.

The system Hal helped design has proven so workable and so significant that it has become a model for system-wide University policies governing faculty housing, medical school compensation plans and phased retirement. Hal himself was usually consulted before any significant change was instituted in the academic personnel process at the system-wide UC level.

Although Hal has retired from his position as vice chancellor, he remains active at UCLA as professor emeritus and as a special assistant to the Vice Chancellor. It is gratifying to know that this well-loved man, like his legacy, will continue to exert a thoughtful influence on the campus where he spent nearly 30 years.