Necrology
Drew Saunders Days III '63
Aug. 29, 1941-Nov. 15, 2020
Drew Saunders Days III ’63, who spent his earliest years in the segregated South, entered Yale Law School determined to become a civil rights lawyer. By attaining that goal, he made an impact on the U.S. government and on countless lives.
Days was nominated by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. At that time The Washington Post reported that Days was the first Black assistant attorney general to head any Justice Department division. In 1992, he became the U.S. solicitor general under President Bill Clinton.
Earlier in Days’ career, as an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), he won a fight to desegregate two school districts in Florida, one of which he attended as a child. He waged many civil rights battles. Days estimated in a 2008 StoryCorps interview with one of his daughters that he’d put a million school children on buses through his work to desegregate schools.
Days, who was a Hamilton life trustee, died on Nov. 15, 2020, at the age of 79. His passing drew tributes from people who knew and worked with him across the decades.
“He cared nothing for titles or recognition, because his client was always the Constitution, not the political powers of the moment,” said Yale Law Professor Harold Hongju Koh in an obituary. Koh is a former Yale Law dean and current Sterling Professor of International Law. “His life will be remembered as a reminder of the moral urgency of putting principle first.”
Former LDF Director-Counsel Elaine Jones described Days as “a brilliant lawyer” and a “committed civil rights legal warrior” in another memorial tribute.
Days was born on Aug. 29, 1941, in Atlanta, the son of Dorothea Jamerson, a teacher, and Drew Days, an insurance company executive. He grew up in Tampa, Fla., and New Rochelle, N.Y., where he graduated from high school.
On the Hill, Days joined Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, sang in the College Choir, was a member of the Ex Officio and Intramural committees, served on the Freshman Council, and was part of the Black and Latin Student Union. He majored in English literature.
“My personal life has been enriched and my sanity preserved (I think) by my love for modern American fiction, which I read regularly, and for choral singing, in which I indulge from time to time,” he wrote in his 25th reunion yearbook.
As an alumnus, Days spoke of how much he valued his time at Hamilton. “Hamilton gave me one of the greatest gifts a college can bestow: an excellent liberal arts education,” he wrote for his 40th reunion. “It prepared me to meet the challenges I have faced in life and made me a lifelong learner — curious to know ever more about new ideas, people, and places I encounter.”
He earned his law degree from Yale in 1966, worked briefly in a law firm in Chicago, and then served in the Peace Corps with his wife, Ann Langdon-Days. After two years in Honduras, Days went to work with the NAACP, then taught at Temple University Law School.
In 1977, he became assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice where he led the Civil Rights Division until 1981. In a 2014 interview with the Touro Law Review, Days said his greatest accomplishment in that job was getting a statute passed that protected the rights of institutionalized people — those in jails, prisoners, youth, and mental facilities.
“They were being treated horrendously — and to this day it is still going on in various places — but this was really the first time that the federal government took a position and gave the attorney general the authority to investigate the situation and demand remedial action. So I was very proud of that,” he said.
Days joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1981 and taught there until he retired in 2017. He took a leave of absence to serve as solicitor general from 1993 to 1996. In 1991, he was named the Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law. He was the founding director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights and received the Award of Merit from the Yale Law School Association.
Throughout his career, Days published many scholarly articles, two legal volumes, and received numerous fellowships and honors, including an honorary degree from Hamilton. He was a generous supporter of his alma mater, first serving on the Board of Trustees in 1986. He was part of the Presidential Search Committee that brought now retired President Joan Hinde Stewart to Hamilton. He established the Drew S. Days III ’63 Internship Fund and was a lead contributor to the C. Christine Johnson HEOP/Scholars Fund.
“Drew was a kind, generous, and warm man who cared deeply for Hamilton. It is fitting that the Days-Massolo Center was named in his honor 10 years ago,” President David Wippman said in a statement to the campus community when Days died. The Days-Massolo Center supports student community organizing, leads inclusive educational initiatives, and amplifies the marginalized voices of those striving to make the Hamilton experience more equitable.
For a dozen years, Days served on the boards for such organizations as the Bank Street School, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Graham-Windham Foundation, the Petra Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He became “of counsel” to the law firm of Morrison & Foerster to establish its pro bono division.
In addition to his wife, survivors include two daughters, two granddaughters, and a sister.
