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Scholar of Renown

William B. Gould, former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and current chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, will visit ILR and the Cornell Law School for three days beginning Wednesday.

The return to campus by Gould, a 1961 Cornell Law graduate, commemorates his donation to ILR’s Kheel Center of papers related to his 1994-1998 labor board chairmanship.

The gift will be formally recognized at a 10 a.m. Friday ceremony at the Kheel Center

Stanford Law School’s Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus, Gould will participate in classes and lead seminars. Events that are open to the public include:

  • "From Automobile Workers and Athletes to Farm Workers: 50 years of Labor Issues" at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday in Myron Taylor Hall, Cornell Law School.
  • "Labor Law, Politics and the NLRB" at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the Doherty Lounge, ILR School.
  • "From Slavery to Cornell: Two Journeys" at 12:15 p.m. Friday in 105 Ives Hall, ILR School. Law School Professor Kevin Clermont and Gould will discuss Gould's book, "Diary of a Contraband: the Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor," based on the diary of Gould’s great-grandfather, and Clermont's book, "Indomitable George Washington Fields: Slave to Attorney,” about Cornell's first African-American graduate.

According to ILR Professor James Gross, "Professor Gould is an internationally respected scholar and prolific writer of books and articles concerning U.S. labor law, racial discrimination at the workplace, professional sports, international and comparative labor law, and workplace conflict resolution procedures, including labor arbitration.”

“He continues to be an influential voice in labor-management relations, not only as a scholar, but also as a public servant and practitioner," Gross said.

Law School Professor Angela Cornell said, “It is a great privilege for the law school to welcome back one of its own, someone who has achieved such prominence in the field of labor and employment law and who continues to influence the development of the law.”

“Professor Gould has an enormous amount of experience and insight to share and we are very much looking forward to having him back,” Cornell said.

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