Edgar Cahn
Donald Trump in his recent stump speeches has been calling the USA a "garbage can." His anti-immigrant rhetoric isn't new, but somehow calling people "garbage" stings hard.
The late Edgar S. Cahn isn't a household name, but he's someone I admire. When I think of him what comes first to mind is "No more throw away people!"
The UDC David A. Clarke School of Law has a wonderful remembrance of Cahn who died in 2022. The article also highlights the important work of Edgar's first wife Jean Camper Cahn.
In the Wikipedia article on Jean Camper Cahn there's a story how how Jean and Edgar became a couple. While at Northwestern a fellow student enlisted Jean to write romantic letters to a boy at Swathmore she was smitten with. At the close of her first year Jean became ill and was forced to leave Northwestern to recuperate at home in Baltimore. When she recovered she attended Swathmore and looked up the boy who got the love letters, who was of course Edgar.
The Cahns wrote an article for the Yale Law Journal promoting equal access to justice for the poor which lead eventually to the Legal Services Corporation.
Edgar Cahn was influential in the creation of the American Indian Self Determination Act. He was a participant in a report on hunger and malnutrition. His litigation on the administration of the depression-era food stamp and agricultural commodity program for landowners led to the reform of the program turning it into an anti-humger program.
Edgar and Jean Camper Cahn founded a law school and shepherded into the what became the David A. Clarke School of Law.
Edgar developed the Time Banking model and created important work on coproduction.
I want to be counted with Edgar Cahn as one who stands for the principle that we are people not garbage.
