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Jenny S. Martinez, dean of Stanford Law School and Richard E. Lang Professor of Law, has been named Stanford’s 14th provost, incoming President Richard Saller announced on Aug. 23.
Martinez will assume her new position Oct. 1. She succeeds Persis Drell, who has worked as provost since February 2017 and announced in May that she would step down this fall. A search for a new dean of Stanford Law School will begin immediately; serving as interim dean will be Robert Weisberg, the Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law and associate dean for curriculum at the law school.
At Stanford the provost oversees academic and budget administration for the university, with direct reports who include the deans of each of Stanford’s seven schools and senior administrators in research, student affairs, budget, undergraduate education, graduate education, and other areas.
Saller, who takes office as Stanford’s president on Sept. 1, said that Martinez joined the faculty in 2003 and became dean of Stanford Law School in 2019.
“As dean, she has been a champion of inclusion and a clear and reasoned voice for academic freedom. Jenny and I look forward to promoting the fundamental mission of a great university – that is, excellence in research and education with integrity,” Saller said.
“I’m honored to take on this role and work in partnership with Richard to get the new academic year off to a good start,” said Martinez. “The fundamentals at Stanford are incredibly strong – among other things, we have the best faculty and students in the world. I am looking forward to listening to members of our community about how best to advance our core missions of education and research in the coming months and years.”
Accomplishments at Stanford Law
Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging has been a priority for Martinez throughout her career. As dean, she established the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, led by R. Richard Banks, the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law.
She also launched the Stanford Law Scholars summer pipeline program to support low-income and first-generation undergraduates on their path to law school.
Martinez’s commitment to diversity includes intellectual diversity, and she has become an important voice on the issues of academic freedom, freedom of speech, and inclusion.
Her letter to the community addressing the disruption of Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech at the school in March clearly outlined the legal precedents, as well as the university’s position, on free speech, protests, academic freedom, and the First Amendment as it applies to private universities.
Among Martinez’s accomplishments as dean of Stanford Law School is the launch in 2022 of an interdisciplinary hub that focuses on advancing rule of law around the world through research, education and practical initiatives to reverse global trends toward autocracy and turn the tide toward accessible, impartial justice and open government.
Like the Law School’s other interdisciplinary initiatives, the Sally B. and William H. Neukom Center for the Rule of Law aims to leverage resources and disciplines across the broader university, including expertise housed at the School of Humanities and Sciences, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Stanford Impact Labs.
During Martinez’s deanship, the school has recruited a number of new faculty whose research spans fields from legal history to artificial intelligence, including domains such as the First Amendment, immigration, human rights, venture capital, and corporate governance.
Martinez has also led many efforts to address affordability, including significantly expanding financial aid resources for Law School students. In the 2022-23 academic year, the school increased its financial aid support by 10%, expanding scholarship amounts for all students on need-based aid and fully covering all tuition costs for JD students with family income below 150% of the poverty line (200% for academic year 2023-24).
The school offers a generous loan repayment program – one of the first of its kind in the country – for students who enter public service or public interest practice.
“Jenny has been an outstanding dean of the law school and will be an extraordinary provost,” outgoing Provost Drell said.
“She has provided courageous leadership for her school in very difficult circumstances. As a dean she was both deeply committed to increasing access to the law school for students of all backgrounds and supporting her faculty to increase the diversity of the professoriate, while she was also breathtakingly articulate in her stands on issues of free speech and academic freedom.
“She is fearless, compassionate, and truly dedicated to our mission of research and education,” Drell said.
Academic and legal career
An experienced litigator as well as a scholar, Martinez teaches courses on constitutional law and international law. She is a leading expert on the role of courts and tribunals in advancing human rights. She is the author of “The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law” and numerous articles in leading academic journals.
Martinez holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and earned her JD at Harvard Law School, where she was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Martinez also was associate legal officer for Judge Patricia Wald of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where she worked on trials involving genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Martinez was recently appointed to the American Bar Association’s Task Force for American Democracy. She previously served as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law.
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