The Gil Kujovich Diversity Fund was created in memory of the Vermont Law School professor and Dean in May 2019. “One of the things that characterized Gil: when he saw something that needed to be done, he didn’t form a committee, he just went out and did it,” said David Firestone, a colleague of Kujovich at VLS.
The Diversity Fund is intended to provide a means of support for students of color or sexual orientation who face those challenges that, in the grand scheme of things could be a drop in the bucket, but in the life of a struggling student, it could mean the difference between success and dropping out. The fund will support the father of five kids who doesn’t have the money for the bar exam, and the students from the south who don’t have a warm coat to face the bitter Vermont winter. It will help a student to make the trip home for the holidays when the cost is impossibly high, or to help repair a student’s car. This fund is the essence of who Gil Kujovich was–stepping in to make a difference in individual lives.
The Diversity Fund will be commemorated in the Gil Kujovich Seminar Room, which was dedicated in May, where every person who gives to the fund will be named. “The Diversity Fund is for a great purpose. If everyone who learned from his teaching, was affected by him or for whom he made a difference gave, even a dollar, they will be commemorated by having their name written in his Seminar Room. I think that would be wonderful,” said his wife Joni Chenoweth.
If everyone gives, that list will be a long one.
“I attended the Vermont Law School 1982,” said Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Diversity Shirley Jefferson. “Though I didn’t have the highest test scores, Gil read my law school application. I grew up in segregated Selma, Alabama. As a little black girl, I marched with Dr. King. I lost my mother when I was 15. I worked as a French fry girl, went to college, and wanted to become a lawyer. Professor Kujovich saw that I could overcome obstacles and invited me to attend.” Jefferson became the third African American person to attend VLS.
“‘Get an education here.” He told me, ‘Represent underprivileged people who are unable to be here.’ If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t be where I am today. When I came back to Vermont Law School in 1999, I used something called the Gil Kujovich method. He would go to historically black colleges and recruit students of color.” When they came to VLS, he supported them throughout their time at the school, and for a lucky few, that support lasted a lifetime.
“It wasn’t like he found it in a textbook and only talked about it,” said Jefferson. He actively took strides to help individuals. “He found someone who has been mistreated by this country and he worked to correct it. He did this perpetually,” said Jefferson.
Dean Jefferson followed her mentor’s lead, working with the student to ensure their success. “Wherever they need support, like Gil, I make that happen. Whether it’s a reduced course load, giving them an academic advisor—all the things that Gil had done for me, I do for other students. Because of Gil, I have helped about 1,000 students succeed. These people go back into society and work with underrepresented communities. They make a difference for those communities, giving back, just as Gil did.” It’s a cycle, and it’s a good one.
“He believed in me.” Jefferson said softly. “That’s unusual when you have someone who believes in you. He would just look beyond a person’s faults and see their strengths and still hold them in the highest of esteem,” said Jefferson.
Kujovich went to Middlebury College and was admitted to Harvard before being drafted to serve in Vietnam. When he returned from the war, he had to apply again to Harvard. “He is the only person who I know who had to apply—and was accepted—twice to Harvard,” said Chenoweth.
As a young attorney, Kujovich clerked with Supreme Court Justices Potter Stewart and Byron White, and then became the Chief Counsel to the White House Intelligence Oversight Board under the Carter Administration. In his exit interview, one is struck by his modesty. When asked who he was, he only spoke about where he was born and where he grew up. When he was asked where he wanted to be in ten years, he said that he wanted to teach, believing it was the best way to contribute. From there he was invited to help set up the first U.S. Department of Education the Honorable Shirley Hufstedler, for whom Professor had clerked while she sat on the U.S.’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and whose primary goals included expanding quality in education. In 1981 he came to Vermont Law School, where he taught for almost 35 years.
“He loved Vermont. He loved the law school. He worked hard for diversity and it mattered to him. The wrongness and irrationality of discrimination and inequality bothered him. It was just wrong.”
Professor Kujovich would walk into his classes at the beginning of a course and introduce himself. “My name is Professor Kujovich. You may call me by my first name: Professor.”
“He was really just a fine man and an excellent professor. As a professor, he could be quite formal in a way; he wasn’t warm and fuzzy,” Chenoweth laughed. After his students graduated, he insisted that they call him Gil.
He was the kind of professor that made an indelible imprint on the minds and lives of his students. “Gil Kujovich not only showed his students how to think better, but also encouraged people to make the world a better place, principally in diversity and equality,” said Mike Hill, who studied under the Professor in 1981 before transferring to Yale Law. “I had great professors at both schools but Professor Kujovich was hands down the best I had at any time. He made us think harder and more deeply than we knew we could, because he approached teaching in such a way that everyone walked out of his classes feeling more capable and otherwise better about themselves,” said Hill.
Chenoweth remembered Anna Saxman, a student of Gil’s who said, “He taught his classes like fine art. You’d read a whole case and then he would narrow it down to its very essence and look at the shades of interpretation.”
He would weigh both sides of an argument in a completely rational way. Gil was invited to testify before the Vermont Legislature during the debate over civil unions, not once, but repeatedly and by legislators on both sides of the issue. When testifying on the issue, “If he had an agenda, it didn’t come through,” said Hill. “He didn’t approach the issues in a partisan way, but in a way that all knew was objective and fair.”
“Gil used to always say that his goal was to shed more light than heat,” said Chenoweth.
To give to the Gil Kujovich Diversity Fund and have your name added to the list of people touched by the Professor, please contact the Vermont Law School Office of Alumni Development, at 802-831-1312 or giving@vermontlaw.edu. You can also make your gift online by visiting https://connect.vermontlaw.edu/makeagift and selecting the fund from the drop down menu.
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