Wilber G. Katz

Wilber G. Katz (1902 – May 17, 1979) was an American legal scholar. He served as the 4th dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1939 to 1950 and later as a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He was a leading scholar on constitutional law and religious freedom.

Education

Katz graduated from the University of Wisconsin with an A.B. in 1923. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1926, he received an LL.B. from Harvard Law School, where he served as a note editor of the Harvard Law Review. He left practice to complete his doctorate at Harvard, earning an S.J.D. in 1930. At Harvard, Katz and then professor Felix Frankfurter edited a casebook on federal jurisdiction and procedure. According to former attorney general Edward H. Levi, Frankfurter brought Katz to the attention of the president of the University of Chicago at the time, Robert Maynard Hutchins. In 1939, Katz was appointed dean of the law school. He faced issues such as a decline in enrollment and the departure of staff during the Second World War and the appropriation of buildings to support the war effort.

After more than thirty years at Chicago, Katz joined the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1962. He retired from full-time teaching in 1970 but continued to teach part-time until his death on May 17, 1979.