Jerre S Williams

Judge Williams sat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans, for 13 years. He was appointed to the Federal Appellate bench in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. A professor at the University of Texas for 46 years, Mr. Williams drew national attention in the 1950's for his role in integrating the law school. The first black to enter the school, Heman Marion Sweatt, was admitted in 1950 after a four-year legal battle that was ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court. After many faculty members refused to teach the new student, Mr. Williams volunteered. Mr. Sweatt later wrote a tribute to him for his courage during the early years of integration. Three years ago the law school named a scholarship in Judge Williams's honor. At the time of his death, four fellow judges on the Fifth Circuit had been among his students. Judge Williams was born and reared in Denver, where his father, Wayne C. Williams, was the state's attorney general. He graduated from the University of Denver in 1938 and Columbia Law School in 1941. When he was a law school professor, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him in 1966 to an emergency mediation board dealing with a Pan American World Airways strike. A year later, Johnson named him to serve as the organizer and first chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Federal agency that aims to streamline the administrative procedures of all Federal agencies. When Mr. Williams was appointed to the Federal Appellate Court, he was president of the Association of American Law Schools. He is survived by his wife, Judge Mary Pearl Williams of Texas District Court, whom he met in law school; a son, the Rev. J. Stockton Williams Jr. of Houston, and two daughters, Shelley Williams Austin and Stephanie Williams, both of Austin.