Michael Mushlin
PROFESSOR OF LAW
B.A. Vanderbilt University
J.D. Northwestern University

“It’s always been my bent to work for social justice,” says Professor Michael Mushlin, who teaches Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Federal Courts, and a Prisoners’ Rights Seminar at Pace.

Part of that motivation, Mushlin says, is as a result of growing up in Mississippi, where he witnessed racial inequalities first-hand. Following college, Mushlin became a VISTA volunteer in the late 1960s, working in a low-income, African-American community in Milwaukee. Once he graduated law school, he practiced as a public interest and civil rights lawyer for 15 years with a legal services office in Harlem, as Staff Attorney and Project Director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society and as Associate Director of the Children’s Right Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. But Mushlin’s commitment to social justice didn’t stop once he joined academia.

Formerly the chair (and currently a board member) of The Correctional Association of New York, Mushlin remains involved in prison reform, both in and out of his classroom. “This is a 160-year-old organization and one of only three in the country that has the right to go into prisons,” Mushlin explains. “When I teach a course on prisoners’ rights, we visit Sing Sing.” Mushlin has also written a three-volume treatise about the rights of prisoners, which is considered the authoritative work on the subject.  Mushlin also serves as a member of a national Task Force on the Legal Status of Prisoners of the American Bar Association, and was the chair of the Committee on Corrections of the New York City Bar.

Mushlin says he’s realistic that most of his students will not end up like him, devoting themselves to prison reform. “A lot of them are going to be prosecutors, who will be sending people to prisons,” he says. “Others will be defense lawyers. I see my role as sensitizing all of them to be conscious of the conditions of prisons and of the rights of prisoners. That is an integral part of the criminal justice system. As a professor, I don’t proselytize or urge them to take a particular position.  I just want them to pay attention to an area that lawyers often overlook. ”

Mushlin, who says he “enjoys being busy” was recently nominated  to serve on the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York for a term beginning this year, an honor that is rarely given to law school faculty. “This appointment is an outstanding achievement,” says Professor Jay C. Carlisle. “This brings honor and respect to all of us from our colleagues in academia and from the bench and bar of the state and country.”

A law professor at Pace for 22 years, Mushlin says he never tires of teaching. “When you see the learning, when you see a student improve, when you see the light bulbs go off, that’s very exciting,” he says. “The more mature I get, the more parental I am as a teacher. You can see them as students or you can see them as human beings. I get a lot of joy from them; they’re a remarkable bunch of people.”

Ever the social activist, Mushlin says he hopes that his passion rubs off on his students. “I try in subtle ways to encourage my students to work for social justice,” he says. “I’m really conscious that as law professors, we’re giving our students tools. It matters not so much what side they end up on, as that they use those tools sensitively, with compassion and with a determination to do the right thing.”