EUGENE–The University of Oregon faculty will bestow the 1999 Charles E. Johnson Memorial Award on law professor Dominick Vetri during commencement on Saturday, June 12.

Vetri will formally receive the honor at a pre-commencement brunch Saturday morning and will be acknowledged again during the spring commencement ceremony which begins at 12:30 p.m. at Hayward Field, 1580 E. 15th Ave.

The Johnson Award, first given by the UO faculty in 1980, traditionally honors a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional service to the university and its community, and who has exemplified the principles affirmed by former UO President Charles E. Johnson. Those principles include that freedom of speech and assembly hold a central position among American constitutional and educational precepts; that a university can and must adapt to accelerating social change while maintaining its basic objective; and that, as Thomas Jefferson said, "…here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it might lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is left free to combat it."

Vetri earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964 and was elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law students. He served as a staff member of the Pennsylvania Law Review where he won the Edwin R. Keedy award for the best contribution to the publication. Vetri was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1965. After work at a private law firm and a trial court clerkship with Chief Judge Harold Kolovsky of the New Jersey Superior Court, he joined the UO law school faculty in 1967 and the Oregon bar in 1977.

Vetri is a specialist in torts, product liability, rights of privacy, and gay and lesbian civil rights. He has published extensively on product liability and other topics in American and international journals. Vetri has given presentations at international conferences and has been a scholar in residence at the Universities of Florence and Geneva. His teaching has won him the university’s prestigious Burlington Northern Award.

"I am delighted that the committee has chosen Dominick Vetri to receive the Johnson Award," says UO President Dave Frohnmayer, a former law school dean. "His devotion to social justice as well as his valuable service to the University of Oregon and its students makes this award a particularly fitting one."

Johnson, for whom the award is named, died in an automobile accident in June 1969 while serving as acting UO president. Prior to becoming acting president, Johnson was dean of the College of Liberal Arts (now the College of Arts and Sciences) for five years.

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