A warm cup of tea and the thick roll of the New York Times are the comforts on hand as Sudha Setty greets the morning after Daylight Savings begins in March 2022. As we share a groan over what must be the worst Monday of the year, even Zooming from the Dean’s Office at Western New England Law School she crackles with energy I suspect I can’t get from my morning coffee. “I’ve missed that sense of energy that comes from just being in New York City and particularly in Queens.”
Though she fell in love with New York City when living here for one summer during college, prompting her to attend Columbia Law School, it was the second time she felt the pull of the city. Sudha grew up driving from eastern Connecticut to Queens with her parents who immigrated from India, car trunk empty to make space for all the specialty foods and groceries her family loved but couldn’t find in their hometown. “I have very distinct memories of that as a child — of my parents wondering ‘How much stuff can we fit in the trunk — is 60 pounds okay?’” It’s clear from her smile that she can’t wait to be back.
“Coming to a law school where social justice is the ethos of the place is an incredible gift. The pieces of the mission of the law school are all pointed in generally the same direction — there is a fundamental difference between CUNY Law and almost every other law school in the country in that respect.” She sees CUNY Law as a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. “The ability to talk to the world about the work that our faculty and students are doing, and how external support can help move the Law School forward is one of the most energizing things I have been able to do. The idea that this is what I get to do, I come to that with gratitude. It’s going to be amazing; I’m so excited.”
Sudha’s resume is an impressive panoply of accomplishments that attest to academic rigor and a passion for teaching. That she was drawn to return to an early itch to teach after working in the intense litigation department of Davis, Polk and Wardwell (now Davis Polk) speaks to how deeply rooted her passion for education is. In her return to law school and teaching, Sudha focused her work on the state of human and civil rights in the wake of 9/11; she believed it was important for someone with her civil rights orientation to join the discussions around national security. She deepened and expanded her expertise, becoming renowned for her work in comparative analysis of separation of powers, rule of law, and national security. In addition to her scholarly expertise, Sudha was awarded Western New England Law School’s Catherine J. Jones Professor of Year Award in 2009, 2016, and 2018, and also received the 2017 Tapping Reeve Legal Educator Award from the Connecticut Bar Association. With such clear evidence of her calling as an educator, what has called her to a deanship first at Western New England School of Law and now CUNY Law? “The best part about being a dean is helping to lead a team toward fulfilling the law school’s mission. At CUNY, that mission is social justice lawyering and tackling the structural barriers to justice that exist in so many contexts. Being part of those endeavors is a gift, and I come to this work with gratitude.”
The answer comes further into focus when asked what she would like to help the Law School accomplish during her time as dean. She responds swiftly: “I would like to see us make a mark cultivating, supporting, and promoting more leaders who are doing important social justice work in the law. One of the things that a CUNY Law education is giving people is not just the ability to represent individuals and effect change through individual client representation. It’s also looking at things structurally, understanding both the context and history of that structure and considering how and when to push for reform and revision.” She goes on to say that training lawyers to make both individual and structural arguments to courts and lawmakers is an avenue for leadership, “And also, we should be looking to put people on the bench, or legislators in office, or leaders at nonprofit organizations, or wherever we can to really start to effectuate change on the larger scale and help people in those institutions rethink what they are doing.” In the last handful of years, she has seen a craving for this kind of social justice leadership, a leadership unafraid of the multilayered tension between reformation and revolution.
Sudha applied for the deanship with an awareness of CUNY Law’s yearning to more fully embody its mission as students, faculty, staff, and alumni have called on one another and the institution to forge a future explicit in its efforts at dismantling systemic racism. She sees the dualism inherent in the work ahead. In fact, the dynamic of reformation versus revolution has held Sudha enthralled since she first began to study civil rights as an undergraduate at Stanford; she crafted her own specialization within the History department in comparative civil rights movements, and later enrolled at Columbia Law School with a deep interest in civil rights work.
“The notion of working within systems for incremental change to reform an institution over time versus really kind of rethinking entire structures and systems all together because the whole thing needs to be reconceptualized — that is what the work is. Beyond that, right, it’s facilitating conversation about where we can find common ground — where everyone is willing to push forward in ways supported by the community.”
She says of her core charge as Dean: “A dean does a good job when focusing on mission, and enabling other people to focus on mission. With the mission of an institution writ large, the dean supports students in becoming thoughtful, smart, values-driven lawyers who go out into the world and do what they want to do, and then continues to support them as alumni engaging in this crucial work.”
Sudha is looking forward to doing an introductory tour to meet every department, faculty member, and student (and eventually alums, too!). She describes an approach that makes space for not only understanding how she can facilitate “strategic priorities and getting past sticking points,” but also personal connection. “Meeting people in small groups and then inviting them to come talk to me one-on-one if they want to discuss a matter further is important.” Her plans for coffee hours, collaborative department meetings, and even perhaps chats over a game of ping pong — “wherever you can just have a nice time to get together with people!” — make it clear that getting to really know CUNY Law is something she truly values.
And if you’re looking for a way to break the ice, you might ask her about one of her favorite ways to recharge: her quick Wordle breaks — she does them in English, Spanish, and French daily. It seems Sudha may bring a crossword puzzler’s outlook to the Dean’s Office: embrace success in small steps, see most every problem as “figureoutable,” and view everything as interconnected. If you’re looking for tips on the NYT Crossword, however, you’ll have to wait; she prefers to end her day curled up with pen and paper, enjoying the challenge.