Oral Histories

Interview of Edgar A. Jones Jr.

Assistant dean of the UCLA School of Law.
Subtitle:
The Law, Arbitration, and the Media
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Faculty
Biographical Note:
Assistant dean of the UCLA School of Law.
Interviewer:
Galm, Bernard and Connors, Thomas J.
Interviewee:
Jones, Edgar A. Jr.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Childhood; high school education; his college years; joins the U.S. Marine Corps; diagnosed as having tuberculosis; writes a novel about Bataan; engagement and marriage; decides to attend the University of Virginia law school; founds the Virginia Law Weekly; passes the bar at the end of his second year of law school; gives legal advice in exchange for his rent; meets Robert F. Kennedy and later works on John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign; Jones is hired at UCLA; the law school's determination not to be mediocre; L. Dale Coffman; Edgar Warren alerts Jones to the controversy surrounding Coffman; the law faculty when Jones arrived; Harold E. Verrall; Roscoe Pound; Thomas S. Dabagh; the School of Law and the Academic Senate; Ralph S. Rice; Arvo Van Alstyne; Richard C. Maxwell; faculty opposition to Coffman grows; Chancellor Raymond B. Allen's plan to remove Coffman from the deanship while Coffman on leave; Jones's arguments opposing that decision; Allan H. McCoid dismissed; Jones's meeting with Coffman and subsequent letter to him; Allen's letter on Coffman; Judge William C. Mathes; faculty committee appointed to investigate the law school; Coffman returns to the department after a year's absence; the search for a new dean; James H. Chadbourn's and Ralph Rice's leadership roles in the department; Albert James Harno's period as acting dean; student reactions to the Coffman period; campus administration, the University of California Board of Regents, and the law school; delay in finding a permanent dean; Coffman assigned new courses; Maxwell appointed dean; Murray L. Schwartz; Addison Mueller; Jones's feeling that he was not suited to be a dean; Jones serves as judge on "Traffic Court"; begins the series "Day in Court"; end of friendship with Chadbourn; effects of Jones's television work on image of UCLA law school; Bela Botos; Jones begins appearing on "Accused"; Los Angeles County Bar Association's denunciation of "tele-vision's courtroom programming"; debates Herman F. Selvin on the issue of courtroom programming; letter from a viewer; benefits and drawbacks of Jones's television stint; Hans Küng's visits to Los Angeles in the early sixties; the 1960 and 1962 law and electronics conferences; attempts to fund the proposed Law-Science Research Center; proposal to combine resources of UCLA and System Development Corporation; Jones's arbitration work; Charles O. Gregory; reasons for decline of the labor movement in the United States; teaching labor law; violations of labor laws in the United States; the arbitration procedure; Jones arbitrates a case for the United States Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Oslo; number of labor arbitration decisions in the United States; arbitration organizations; the Taft-Hartley Act; why parties accept arbitration rather than go to court; crippling effect of the National Labor Relations Board; arbitration with Ryan Aeronautical Company and the United Automobile Workers; arbitration at Douglas Aircraft Company; cases involving racial discrimination; arbitration of safety disputes; intertwining racial discrimination and safety issues in a case with Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1980; Jones's activity in the National Academy of Arbitrators; composition of the National Academy of Arbitrators.