W. Page Keeton

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Werdner Page Keeton (born in McCoy, Texas, August 22, 1909, died January 10, 1999) attended the University of Texas at Austin where he was a member of the Tejas Club. He graduated first in his class at the University of Texas School of Law in 1931 and joined the University of Texas law faculty the following year at the age of 23. He earned a Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard in 1936.

Keeton served as dean of the University of Texas Law School for 25 years (1949-1974) and was dean of the law school at the University of Oklahoma for three years (1946-1949). During the 1957-1958 school year Keeton was a visiting torts professor at UCLA Law School where he quickly became one of the school's favorite professors. At the University of Texas, he is credited with increasing the funding for the law school and making it possible to assemble a faculty that ranked among the best in the United States.

Dean Keeton was a prolific writer and one of the foremost authorities on the law of torts. Keeton was co-author of the most-cited work in Tort law, Prosser & Keeton on Torts.

Dean Keeton served as president of the Association of American Law Schools; national chair of the Council of Legal Education Opportunity; and was presented the Torch of Liberty Award of the Anti-Defamation League.

Over the years Dean Keeton dealt with a number of individual instances in which a prominent alumnus or powerful politician would urge him to silence or get rid of faculty members who were espousing unpopular or unorthodox political and social ideas. Dean Keeton would say:

“Well, we have people on the faculty that feel just as you do about the [particular social] issue that you're talking about, except for one thing. They believe in the idea that we ought to have freedom of thought on the faculty, and we ought to tolerate people on the faculty that disagree . . .. In other words, they agree with your position on this issue, except they don't agree with your position that nobody else ought to be on the law faculty with a different position.”

Keeton considered his greatest accomplishment as dean the formation of The University of Texas Law School Foundation, a separate educational corporation with a "powerful board, [one] that the administration just couldn't brush off." The members of the Foundation Board were prominent and successful lawyers who could contribute funds, raise funds, assure other alumni that their gifts would be used for the law school and not some other purpose, and resist efforts by the university administration and the legislature to reduce the law school's funding in response to its successes in fund-raising. As Dean Keeton later summarized his thinking, "it pays to have a power structure of your own." When the chancellor of the university objected to the fact that the existence of the Law School Foundation's Board alongside the University's Board of Regents meant "that you'd have two boards to deal with, and you'd multiply your problems," Keeton responded: "Look, it's better to have money and problems than no money."

Upon retirement, Dean Keeton offered, "If I had it to do all over again, I don't know that I could do near as well."

The City of Austin renamed 26th Street, so that The University of Texas School of Law is now located at 727 Dean Keeton Street.

Dean Keeton died in Austin, Texas, on January 10, 1999.

W. Page Keeton was the father of former Texas Comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, and grandfather of Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary , and Mark McClellan, current Medicare director and former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Keeton's grandsons Scott and Mark McClellan have both quoted Keeton's words as inspiring them to public service: "It's not the dollars you make; it's the difference you make." ^[1] ^[2]