Publication Date
2007
Abstract
Not long after I joined the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Law in the fall of 1969, I heard from other faculty members about Milner Ball. Superbly educated with degrees from Princeton and the Harvard Divinity School, Milner was what we today would term a "non-traditional student." He was older than the typical entering law student; indeed he was five years older than me, and he had served for several years as a campus minister before taking up the study of law. Milner had created something of a local stir when he led a peaceful demonstration against the war in Vietnam by picketing a visit to campus and speech by then- Secretary of State Dean Rusk. One of the enduring stories of the Law School is how, in time, then-Professor Rusk would hire Milner as his research assistant after Milner graduated from law school and the two of them would grow close personally while never yielding on either of their views on the war's morality or necessity. I did not have Milner as a student that first year, but in my second year of teaching, there was Milner, who was well on his way to graduating first in the class and who had been chosen the past spring to serve as editor in chief of the Georgia Law Review. In fact, I had Milner as a student in two different classes in the fall of 1970. I suspect that his enrollment in both Constitutional Law and in Legal Profession made me a better teacher; teaching under Milner's watchful gaze certainly was a daily reminder that I needed to bring it every day.
Recommended Citation
Ellington, C. Ronald
(2007)
"Milner Ball: My Student, My Teacher,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 41:
No.
3, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol41/iss3/4