Remembering Professor Ray Klitzke

Headshot photo of Professor Ray Klitzke wearing a suit and tie.The Marquette Law School community was saddened to learn of the death March 29 of Emeritus Professor of Law Ramon (“Ray”) Klitzke.  He was 90 years old.

Named by his mother after silent screen star Ramon Novarro, Ray had ramrod straight posture and an athletic build.  He was a competitive swimmer and diver throughout his life.  He cut a dashing figure in the hallways of Sensenbrenner Hall, not unlike his namesake.

Ray was a devoted teacher and scholar.  Ray also served the Wisconsin State Bar in a variety of capacities during his career, serving at various times as Reporter for the Local Government Section, Reporter for the Administrative Law Section and Chairman of the  Patent, Trademark & Copyright Section.  During Ray’s tenure as a full time faculty member, I doubt that there was a single Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin State Bar that did not include Ray on the agenda in some form, usually as a presenter providing an update on recent legal developments in his field.

Ray retired from the Marquette Law School faculty in 1994.

I valued Ray as a friend, as a colleague, and as a valuable contributor to the Wisconsin legal community.  He leaves his wife Doris, his children Ramon, Albert and Ann and their spouses, and an extended family of grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Services will be held tomorrow April 5 at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Brookfield.  More information about Ray’s life, the visitation and services is available here.

 

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Israel Reflections 2019–Holy Sites in the Old City

On our second full day in Israel, we visited the Old City to gain perspective at how the crossroads of religion all seem to meet here. And, for the first time, we could actually ascend to the top of the Temple Mount to see the Dome of the Rock up close. (I had not been able to do this since 1992!)

Haley Stepanek was in awe of how “Billions of people revere this site as one of the holiest on earth: for Muslims, Temple Mount contains the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque; for Jews, it is the site where Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac to God,” and the site of the first and second Temples. In fact, our visit to the Temple Mount happened just days before it was again temporarily closed when news broke that a Molotov cocktail was thrown on the grounds of Temple Mount. This event, and many events that happened around us while we were on this trip, gave everyone a sense of how present the conflict is.

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Garry Wills to Speak at Marquette Law School

Author Garry Wills dressed in a suit and tie speaks at a public event.
Author Garry Wills

On April 18 at 4 pm Pulitzer Prize winning author Garry Wills will speak at the Marquette University Law School.  The topic of his talk is “Does Democracy Protect Human Rights? Constitution vs. Plebiscite.”

The event is sponsored by a grant from the UW Stout’s Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation.

Garry Wills is Professor Emeritus of history and a cultural historian at Northwestern University. His many books include studies of George Washington, Richard Nixon, the Kennedy family, Ronald Reagan, and religion in America. His 1992 book, “Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America,” won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Wills won the 1979 Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians and the 1978 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction for his 1978 book, “Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.” Wills has also been awarded the National Humanities Medal, and he was inducted as a laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln. His most recent book is “What The Qur’an Meant and Why It Matters.”

The event is free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested.

 

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