By Ralph
Derickson
Robert G. Schwemm was honored
for three decades of work in fair housing law and for his support of scores of local fair
housing organizations.
|
June
29, 2000 – (Lexington, Ky.) – University
of Kentucky law professor Robert G. Schwemm has received the top annual award given by the
National Fair Housing Alliance. Schwemm, the
Ashland Professor of Law at UK and former acting dean of the College of Law, received the
award at the NFHA annual conference in Washington, D.C. In
addition to his three-decades of work in fair housing law, Schwemm was particularly
praised for his support for the scores of local fair housing organizations throughout the
country that make up NFHA.
Schwemm
also wrote one of the definitive books in the field of fair housing, "Housing
Discrimination: Law and Litigation." He
donates part of the royalties from the sale of the book to NFHA to be used for
scholarships.
A
native of Barrington, Ill., Schwemm's first job after graduation from Harvard Law School
was in a Washington, D.C., law firm where he did volunteer work for a local fair housing
group.
After
two years in Washington, Schwemm returned to the Chicago area where he worked in the legal
action program of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities. He eventually became chief trial counsel for the
agency and participated in numerous precedent-setting fair housing cases, including two
that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Schwemm
began teaching at UK in 1975 and during his career in Kentucky he served four years as a
member and eventually vice chair of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. He also took a leave of absence from teaching to
serve as a special attorney with the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of the U.S.
Justice Department when the new U.S. Fair Housing Amendments Act was first being
implemented in 1991.
|
