Celebrating Charles Ogletree, Jr. comes naturally to so many people because he served not only as a tireless champion of equality and justice, but also as a devoted professor, mentor and friend. I write to celebrate another aspect of this legal luminary: his life as a scholar.
Through his scholarship, Charles illuminated the varied manifestations of injustice and how our nation could correct both historic and present wrongs. His work spanned a broad array of topics such as the death penalty, the sentencing guidelines, school desegregation, and reparations, to name only a few. Law scholars and others have described Charles as a scholar who was “renowned,” “revolutionary,” and “a modern version of Charles Hamilton Houston.” As a scholar, Charles was all of these things and more.
In this brief tribute, I explain some of the ways that Charles was a scholar of intention, insight and impact.