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Abstract

Anna Williams Shavers began her career at the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1989. That year, former Dean, soon-to-become Chancellor Harvey Perlman wrote a tribute to retiring Professor Lawrence Berger in which he said that the prior decades at the College had been the “Larry Berger era.”1 I remember being startled by the remark at the time, even though I had always considered (and still consider) Larry to be my father figure on the faculty. But prior eras at the College, if there were such things, would have been named for Deans (the Pound era) or world events (closure of the World War II era)—not faculty members. But now I understand Dean Perlman’s comment because I have lived through another era that could be named for a faculty member. Anna Shavers was the College’s first African- American professor, and she shepherded the College, as Professor, Associate Dean, and Acting Dean, into a new era of awareness and inclusion. She has had the single greatest effect on the culture of the Law College of anyone during my four decades here. It may well be that the “Larry Berger era” was followed immediately by the “Anna Shavers era.” But before I get to that, some history. Before coming to Nebraska, Anna had lived several varieties of life as a Black female and, in each life, she overcame any disadvantage and thrived.

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