Reminiscences about Michigan Law School Classes of 1981-82

By Myint Zan

 

JUST over 44 years ago, in late August 1981, I arrived at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States to study as a postgraduate student at Michi­gan Law School.

 

Orientation at Michigan Law School, late August 1981

 

First Burmese to graduate with an LLM from the Univer­sity of Michigan Law School

 

From what the late Profes­sor William W Bishop Jr told me, I was the second Burmese to arrive from Burma (as it was then officially called) to study at Michigan Law School since 1951 (University of Michigan was es­tablished in August 1817, and the Law School in 1859). The person who arrived in Michigan in the Fall (‘Autumn’) semester of 1951 was the late U Nyun Tin, who, after the first semester, shifted to Yale Law School and graduated with an LLM (Master of Laws) from Yale, perhaps in 1952. To the best of my knowledge, as of 2021, I am the only Burmese who has graduated with a Master of Laws (LLM) (1982) from Michigan Law School.

 

A Brief Glimpse of the Miranda versus Arizona case

 

Orientation for graduate students and research scholars was held at the Law School on or about 26 August 1981. Then, Michigan Law School Dean, the late Professor Terrance Sanda­low, was one of the speakers at the orientation.

 

Professor Theodore St An­toine (now Emeritus) at the Law School) spoke about Labour Law. I clearly recall that he concluded his remarks, graciously stating, ‘We [American Labour lawyers] have to learn both from the East as well as the West’.

 

Professor Yale Kamisar spoke about criminal law and procedure. Excerpts from the 1966 Miranda versus Arizona rul­ing, both majority and dissent­ing opinions, were distributed in advance to incoming LLM stu­dents before the orientation. The United States Supreme Court in Miranda versus Arizona 384 US 436 in effect ruled that when arrests of suspected criminals are made police officers making the arrests must give what came to be later known as Miranda warnings to the person(s) who are being arrested in that they have ‘the right to remain silent, the right to request an attorney (lawyer)’ and if they cannot afford an attorney an attorney will be provided to them’. The warning must also include the phrase that whatever the suspects say will be written down and these can and will be used against them in Court. In the year 1966, the United States Supreme Court, by a majority, held to the effect that if these warnings are not given, then the conviction meted out to the criminal defendants can be quashed or cases can be sent back to the trial court.

 

I recall that I first read parts of the dissenting opinions and was somewhat persuaded by them. When Professor Kamisar discussed the case, I changed my mind and agreed with the majority opinion (which indeed was the decision of the Court).

 

Fast forward to the year 2000. In the case of Dickerson versus Illinois, 530 US 428, the late United States Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that the ‘Miranda warnings have become part of our national culture’ and refused to overrule the Miran­da decision. But the late Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissent, stated almost condescendingly that the refusal to overrule the Miranda case was ‘faux judicial restraint’.

 

Fast forward to the year 2025. Among the current nine Justices of the United States Supreme Court, this writer is of the view that at least four Jus­tices, namely Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Ka­vanaugh and Amy Coney Bar­rett, may well overrule Miranda if they were given the chance to do so judicially.

 

Reminiscence of A Few Classes and Interactions

 

Professor Don Regan’s ‘Constitutional Law survey for foreign students’

 

At least since the 1970s, if not earlier, foreign students in the Michigan LLM classes have to compulsorily take the course ‘Constitutional Law Survey for foreign students’. Most of the classes in all those decades were taught by now-retired Professor Donald Regan. Professor Regan informed me that he retired in December 2020, and he taught ‘the Constitutional Law Survey’ class to foreign LLM students for perhaps over 40 years since the mid-1970s.

 

During the fall semester of 1981, in a class of about 25 stu­dents, a student from New Zea­land, Mr Peter Cawthorn, occa­sionally questioned or, if you will, challenged Professor Regan. I recall that in one class, Profes­sor Regan, in response (perhaps indulgently) stated: ‘Believe me, Mr Cawthorn!’

 

I also learned from Don Regan’s class that President Wil­liam Howard Taft served as Chief Justice of the United States after serving as President of the Unit­ed States. In independent Bur­ma, it was the obverse since the ‘elevation’ was from the post of Chief Justice to President. The late Sir Ba U was Chief Justice from 4 January 1948 to 11 March 1952 and served as President of the Union of Burma from 12 March 1952 to 11 March 1957. The late Dr Maung Maung served as Chief Justice from 5 June 1965 to 11 July 1972 and then, more than 16 years later, as President from 19 August 1988 to 18 September 1988.

 

Professor Francis Allen’s Criminal Law Class and WHY PARKER!

 

I attended the late Profes­sor Francis Allen’s Criminal Law class in Fall 1981. On the first day of class, he asked the students to read a British case of Regina versus Dudley and Stephens, 1884 14 QBD 273 DC, which was about the cannibal­ism of a 17-year-old boy in a lifeboat on the High Seas. The youngest among four persons in the lifeboat (after a ship wreck in July 1884), 17-year-old Rich­ard Parker was killed by the de­fendants Dudley and Stephens. The Judge who tried them re­jected the defence of necessity (in criminal law). In explain­ing the case, Professor Allen apparently took umbrage that Dudley and Stevens had acted against the weakest member of the crew. Professor Allen, a bit theatrically and as a pedagog­ic tool, almost shouted, ‘WHY Parker?’ [was chosen to be killed by Dudley and Stevens]. I later learned from those who have taken Prof. Allen’s criminal law classes in previous years that in those classes, he also had stated the phrase WHY PARK­ER in teaching the case.

 

Fast forward to 2009. In an article published in July-August 2009 of the Malayan Law Jour­nal (2009 4 MLJ), yours truly had in page clxxiv at footnote 92 of my article quoted the late Professor Allen’s remarks, albe­it the ‘Why’ that I queried was not in relation to the Dudley and Stephens case as such.

 

Professor Yale Kamisar’s First Amendment class: ‘my show’ and ‘arguably wrong’

 

In Winter Term 1982, I ‘au­dited’ (in current expression) the late Professor Yale Kamisar’s ‘First Amendment’ class. I was the only foreign student from our batch to take the subject dealing with that specific area of Amer­ican constitutional law. Another (then) student by the name of Jamil Nasir at times challenged Professor Kamisar’s statements. Once Mr Nasir stated in the class: QUOTE ‘What I find wrong in your argument’ UNQUOTE. Professor Kamisar responded by saying QUOTE Hey Nasir, this is my show! Say ‘arguably wrong’, not ‘wrong’ UNQUOTE, which Mr Nasir ‘followed’ by saying ‘What I find arguably wrong’.

 

In Burma/Myanmar, gener­ally even at University and post­graduate levels, challenges as to what the teacher or ‘guru’ states are considered, oftentimes as being non-deferential or worse. At least at times, at Michigan and elsewhere in Australian and American law schools, where I have studied and taught, such challenges and comments are not discouraged.

 

Professor Andrew S Wat­son’s ‘Law and Psychiatry’ Class and Freud’s Joke Book

 

Another course that I took in Winter Term 1982 was ‘Law and Psychiatry’ by the late Pro­fessor Andrew S. Watson, who was a Professor of Law and Professor of Psychiatry. In one of his classes, Professor Wat­son recommended that if the students had ‘nothing pressing to read’ then they should read the (English translation) of Sig­mund Freud’s Jokes and their relations to the unconscious (first published in German in 1905). As an incentive, Profes­sor Watson added that the book contains ‘a lot of jokes’. More than 27 ½ years later, only in September 2009, while I was on a five-week Visiting Professorship at the West Virginia University College of Law in the United States, that I read Freud’s ‘joke book’.

 

(Un)self-consciously, I would mention that in the May 1983 University of Michigan Honours Convocation (which I was not able to attend), I was awarded a ‘Certificate of Merit’ for the best results in the course ‘Law and Psychiatry’ and for achieving co-equal first in the course attended by about 32 stu­dents. I have lost or misplaced the certificate, and so far have not been able to obtain a new copy.

 

Over 120 years of Michigan LLM programme(s) and this writer’s (humble) contribu­tion

 

I learned from the Associate Dean of Michigan Law School that the ‘inaugural’ LLM pro­gramme at Michigan was in the year 1890, and among the graduates, one or two were from Japan. I have also learned that since 1890, even during the in­ter-war years (First and Second World Wars, 1914 to 1918, 1939 to 1945 respectively), there were no interruptions of the LLM pro­grammes, in that the courses continued. As it enters its 121st year, one wonders whether the list of the names of countries from which the students came (if possible), since 1890, if that is not possible, then going back, say, to the 1930s, may be com­piled by relevant personnel of the Law School. If such a compi­lation were to be made, it could be published in a small booklet and may also be stated on the Law School website.

 

In 2017, yours truly estab­lished a ‘Myint Zan LLM prize’ at Michigan Law school to give annual awards to ‘exemplary students with interdisciplinary interests and commitment to social justice, and an under­standing of the role law can play in easing the plight of disad­vantaged members of society’. From 2018 to 2025, eight LLM graduates from New Zealand, Nigeria/Ghana, Indonesia (to two different students), Austria, Pakistan, Ecuador, Argentina, respectively, were awarded the Myint Zan LLM prize. In the future, the excess funds could be used to support students from Southeast Asia who might wish to study at Michigan Law School.

 

The English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his poem The Brook, wrote, ‘Men may come and men may go but I [the Brook] go on forever’. (Aside: Tennyson composed the poem in 1886, hence the use of – in some circles - politically incorrect ‘men’; perhaps he also meant or included women as well in the ‘comings and goings’). More than four generations of foreign students -at least several hun­dred- have studied and graduat­ed from the Michigan Law LLM and postgraduate programmes. The beautiful Law Quadrangle at Michigan Law School would continue to welcome the current (2025) and future generations of students.

 

Myint Zan, LLM’82 (Univer­sity of Michigan), taught law and law-related subjects from 1989 to 2016 at 9 Universities in Malaysia, Australia, the South Pacific and the United States.