Former Assistant Professor of Clinical Law Vanessa Merton ’73 passed away on July 16, Dean Troy McKenzie ’00 has announced. “Vanessa’s contributions to the legal field, particularly in immigration law, were profound and far-reaching,” McKenzie said. “She will be greatly missed.”
After teaching at NYU Law, Merton was a founding faculty member of CUNY Law School before joining the Pace Law School faculty, where she was a professor of law and director of the Immigration Justice Clinic (IJC) at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law. For 15 years, Merton served as Haub Law’s associate dean for clinical education and executive director of John Jay Legal Services.
Merton also practiced with the Criminal Defense Division of The Legal Aid Society of New York and as pro bono trial counsel at the First Department Disciplinary Committee. She served for two decades on the advisory board of the Mount Sinai-Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which in 2012 named her “Woman of the Year.” She was also founding chair of the Institutional Review Board of the Community Research Initiative of the People with AIDS Coalition and member of the AIDS Medical Research Foundation Institutional Review Board.
This year the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, Merton’s longtime home, honored her by proclaiming July 1 as “Vanessa Merton Day.” Pace Law School recently announced the establishment of the Vanessa Merton Immigration Justice Fellowship, a testament to Merton’s legacy and commitment to social justice.
Posted July 25, 2024