Retired Professor C. Robert Morris, Longtime Member of Law School Faculty, Dies

Professor C. Robert Morris, a member of the Minnesota Law faculty from 1964 to 2000, passed away last week.

Morris taught Torts, Property, Corporations and Business Law. 

Morris earned an LL.B. degree from Yale University in 1951. After graduation, he entered the U.S. Air Force where he served as an assistant staff judge advocate. In 1953 he joined the faculty at Rutgers University Law School where he taught for 10 years before becoming a member of the Law School faculty in 1964.

While at Minnesota Law, Morris served as a board member for the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union and as President of the University of Minnesota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He also chaired the University of Minnesota Tenure Committee during its early work in drafting the current Tenure Code.

Reflecting on his career and time at the Law School in a fall 2000 article announcing his retirement, Morris attributed the high-caliber of the student body to the expansion of the number of women pursuing law degrees. During his tenure, he saw that number grow from a relatively few to a point where women made up nearly half of the students. “It’s made a tremendous difference at the Law School, and in the classroom experience,” he said.