Professor Spotlight: William Schaefer
Photo courtesy of William Schaefer
Professor William Schaefer, a member of the political science faculty, earned his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University, his master’s from Rutgers University and his J.D. from American University. At Hofstra, he primarily teaches constitutional law and American criminal justice. However, going into law wasn’t part of his original plan.
“My original goal was to teach, [so] I went to George Washington, Rutgers and then American University to teach political science,” Schaefer explained. “For some reason, I decided I wanted to do something else, so because I was a faculty [member] at American, I got to go to their law school for free.”
Although Schaefer didn’t set out to be a lawyer when beginning his education, once he was in the thick of it, he knew the exact kind of attorney he wanted to be.
“From the very start I knew that I would be in prosecution work,” Schaefer said. “I also knew that I would never work as a defense attorney just because it wasn’t where my heart and head was.”
Upon graduation from law school, Schaefer held several prestigious jobs, including a federal clerkship with a U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, followed by a two-year stint in Suffolk County, New York, as the assistant district attorney.
Most of his legal career was spent in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, prosecuting organized crime.
“I enjoyed that time out there immensely,” Schaefer said with a grin. “[I] did everything from drug cases to murder-for-hires to racketeering, and [I] had the full resources of the federal government behind [me].”
Part of Schaefer’s desire to dive into prosecutorial work was rather straight forward – it was easier on his conscience.
“If I said to myself, ‘I probably could convince a jury even though there’s not enough evidence,’ I don’t bring that case, because the prosecutor’s job is not to win but to secure justice,” Schaefer explained. “So, the way I always looked at it is I always made less money than a defense attorney, but I never had trouble sleeping at night because of any moral issues.”
Even with all these complicated cases, Schaefer never sacrificed his love for teaching in favor of his passion for justice.
“I never actually left teaching, because even when I was at the U.S. Attorney’s office, you’re allowed, as one of your outside interests, to teach,” Schaefer said. “The thing I love about teaching that I can do is, I can bring in the obviously academic side, but also flesh it out with individual anecdotes; so hopefully it gives the students a much better understanding because it’s not just the dry academic work, but it is also real life being infused in it.”
One of the driving forces that keeps law schools filled with students is that law, as an ever-evolving field, can be one of the most difficult things to study. To adapt to different legal theories and legislation, Schaefer explained his “master key” method that has worked for decades.
“Giving [students] questions that don’t really have a right or wrong answer, but rather make you think of the ethical and political and constitutional and legal issues, [is how I teach],” Schaefer said. “I try to convince my students that, despite what the law states, law is infused with politics and values and cultures and various issues.”
While some would pride themselves on having an old-fashioned way of thinking and teaching, Schaefer was quite the opposite, embracing the constantly changing ways of the modern political world and the law.
“The good thing is, unlike a lot of other areas of teaching, political science and the law are constantly evolving,” Schaefer explained. “So there’s nothing static.”
On a more personal note, Schaefer was quick to add that teaching is a two-way street, where teachers can be impacted by students just as much as the professors try to influence their pupils.
“The student I remember most was a student here, a young man from Mississippi. One of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever seen, and he went on to become a Rhodes Scholar,” Schaefer said. “It’s a terrible analogy, but he came to the school as a caterpillar, and he left as a butterfly. He truly found himself and then was able to start projecting outward.”
A fun fact about Schaefer is that he’s traveled to 125 countries around the world including Israel, China and Jordan.
“I remember eating crickets in Vietnam [as] part of the culinary treats,” Schaefer recalled. “[They were] not bad because they poured garlic and butter on it, kind of like if you pour garlic and butter on anything else it’s going to taste not so bad.”
One of Schaefer’s most vivid travel memories is from Cape Town, South Africa.
“I had gone to South Africa to look at apartheid and was taken out to the island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 20 years, and the guide who gave me the tour of the island was a former prisoner in the very prison he was guiding us through and knew Mandela quite well,” Schaefer said. “On that same trip, I had the opportunity to actually meet with Desmond Tutu.”
Even with all his vast life experiences, he has one big regret: never learning another language besides Latin.
“Unless I run into Julius Caesar, it’s not going to do me much good to know [Latin], and that’s probably one of my great regrets,” Schaefer confided. “I would have liked to have studied a language much more thoroughly.”
On the flip side, he admitted that there’s plenty of things he’s rather proud of accomplishing in his life.
“There were a couple of cases that I prosecuted out in California that really did protect and help an awful lot of people,” Schaefer explained. “Dealing with pretty ruthless organized crime groups who preyed on an awful lot of people and getting those cases successfully prosecuted meant I was really getting some bad people off the street.”
