Walter Brandeis Raushenbush

Walter Brandeis Raushenbush was born on June 13, 1928 to parents Elizabeth Brandeis, daughter of Louis D. Brandeis, the Supreme Court Justice, and Paul A. Raushenbush, son of Walter Rauschenbusch, the pastor known for the Social Gospel. Walter was raised in Madison, Wisconsin where his parents were both esteemed economists responsible for the creation of the nation’s first Unemployment Compensation Bill.

He attended Harvard College where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Walter returned to the University of Wisconsin to attend Law School where he graduated first in his class with highest honors. Following his graduation in 1953, he joined the United States Air Force as a Judge Advocate, rising to the rank of Colonel. While serving in Germany, Walter went to Paris for a date with Marylu DeWatteville, whom he had met at a party in Texas while completing basic training. As he was fond of telling later, “I knew when I saw her under the Arc de Triomphe that I would marry her.” A year later, in 1956, Marylu and Walter were married, a loving bond that lasted 58 years until Marylu’s death in 2014.

Walter and Marylu moved to Madison to begin their life together. After the birth of the first of four children, Walter joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin Law School where he taught for four decades until retiring in 1998. In addition to teaching, he authored four books on property law and became involved in law school admissions. He served as president of the Law School Admissions Council, where he helped develop the Law School AptitudeTest (LSAT) as well as serving on the Real Property question drafting committee for the Multistate Bar Examination.

At his retirement, he was described by the Law School as “a master teacher, a good colleague and a valued University citizen carrying on the tradition of his parents.” Like his parents, he used his expertise to improve social realities including helping to write and lobby for fair housing legislation aimed at ending discrimination against Black home buyers in Wisconsin. In 1963, Walter gave a talk on the topic of racial discrimination with a title lifted from his grandfather Walter Rauschenbusch’s classic book “Dare We Be Christians”, in which he articulated why it was the Church’s obligation to help end discrimination in housing. He also chaired the University’s Human Rights Committee and addressed discrimination in campus housing as well as the Greek Fraternity system, which had only recently lifted its ‘whites only’ policies.  Walter fully supported reproductive choice and the work of his wife Marylu who was the first chairperson of Wisconsin Citizens for Family Planning that lobbied to make contraception available in Wisconsin.

Almost every one of his ninety-five years, Walter would spend part of his summer at his grandfather Brandeis’ cottage in Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. He first arrived only six weeks after he was born, and when asked, he would delight in telling people he had been coming to Chatham since ”the later years of the Coolidge Presidency.” Each summer he would spend several weeks living with his grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins where they embraced the simple pleasures of sailing, swimming, canoeing, band concerts, clamming and the familial, competitive games of croquet – activities that were shared with and are carried on by children and grandchildren. Walter and Marylu were active in the Stage Harbor Yacht Club, where their children and grandchildren also learned to sail, and both were keen tennis players and golfers.

Over the years, Walter was invited to be a guest professor at Law Schools across the country, only accepting those that were in warmer climates, including the University of San Diego where Walter taught for several years, leading him and Marylu to uproot to Coronado, CA where their home overlooked the Pacific Ocean and gave the whole family immense pleasure for over a decade. In his final years, Walter lived with his daughter, Lorraine, and her husband, Flynn Bucy, in McLean, Virginia. Walter acknowledged that he had ‘hit the jackpot’ as he was able to enjoy the warmth of family life including sporting events and theater performed by his grandchildren, John and Elizabeth.

With a remarkable mind that never diminished, Raushenbush could equally recall facts from political world history, the identity of birds, lyrics to musical comedies, sports details and exact dates and activities from the many family adventures across the country. His encouragement of his children’s various paths made him a wonderful father and his children are profoundly thankful.

Raushenbush is survived by his four children and partners: Lorraine and Flynn Bucy, Richard Raushenbush and Barbara Giuffre, Carla Raushenbush and Michael Kantor, Paul Raushenbush and Brad Gooch, along with grandchildren Nicholas Raushenbush and fiance Jess Wen, Genevieve Raushenbush, John Bucy, Elizabeth Bucy, Walter Gooch-Raushenbush and Glenn Gooch-Raushenbush. Private memorial services are planned in Mclean, Va and Chatham, Ma.