Southern Connecticut State University’s long-held commitment to social justice is echoed by Neil Thomas Proto, ’67, a celebrated lawyer, author, and teacher.
New Haven-born Proto — a first-generation college student — has committed to donate $750,000 to five endowments he has established at the university. These include: a scholarship for students seeking to attend law school; funds supporting Southern’s Pre-Law Society, and an archive for the papers of four New Haven mayors.
”From its inception, and with the renewed moral and deep scholarship imperative of its president, Dwayne Smith, this university has encouraged and supported values that define civic duty in America,” Proto said. “They matter to me. Values born of hard choices soundly made; that insist on fairness, the fearless intellect, insightful and shared reasoning, and the skilled exercise of ethical thoughtfulness.
“The endowments and related programs we’ve created — given vibrancy by faculty and students, including through the university’s library — in law, social justice, scholarship, and New Haven’s mayoral life in the 20th and now 21st century, have enhanced and made real the broader range and attainment of student aspirations,” Proto said.
Proto’s first endowment at Southern was a scholarship for aspiring lawyers inspired by his experiences at the university as a first-generation student – which he believes led to his future success as an attorney in Washington, D.C. Southern now has 10 to 13 students a year entering law school.
Subsequently, Proto has established several other endowments, including The Neil Thomas Proto Scholar and Civic Fund in Law and Social Justice. The fund supports annual faculty-led practical-based presentations on the two themes, broadly defined, while promoting students’ active civic engagement.
“Neil Proto is a proud Southern alumnus who cares deeply about the university and its social justice-driven mission,” said Interim President Smith, who joined Proto at a pledge signing in Southern’s Hilton C. Buley Library. “Neil’s passion for community engagement and his generosity of spirit will further define our unique efforts to produce civic-minded students and help effect positive societal change.”
Proto’s most recent gift established a New Haven Mayoral Archive in Buley Library, building on an earlier donation of more than 100,000 items by former Mayor John DeStefano. The archive now features documents, campaign materials and memoranda from the careers of four New Haven Mayors – Biagio DiLieto (1980-90); John Daniels (1990-94); John DeStefano (1994 to 2014); and Toni Harp (2014-20); with the papers of Justin Elicker (the incumbent mayor) pending.
“As New Haven’s public university, and consistent with its historically thoughtful relationship with the city, Southern is a natural home for this important archival collection,” Proto said. “(Each of these mayors) made valuable contributions to the civic good and political life of the city long before and during their mayoralty. Their lives warrant this active effort to preserve and chronicle who they were.”
A retired partner with Washington, D.C., law firms, Proto devoted 45 years to public service and private practice in law, including land use, environmental, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and federal litigation, as well as teaching assignments at Yale and Georgetown universities. He is also an accomplished author, having covered topics ranging from Three Mile Island to a biography of former Yale President and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti.
A highly engaged student at Southern, Proto was the Student Government Association president in his senior year and received the Leadership Award. His connection to his alma mater has remained ironclad. In 1976, Proto delivered the commencement address, and he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1981.
“Many graduates, myself included, always embraced Southern’s valued place in our lives,” Proto said. “I applaud Southern’s ongoing imperative under President Smith to educate, inspire and elevate the meaning of civic duty, law and social justice.”
Proto’s contributions to the field of law began early. In 1971 and 1972, while still a law student at George Washington University, he chaired Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), which challenged the nation’s railroads and sued the United States. The students’ work resulted in the first Supreme Court case to consider the National Environmental Policy Act (1973), and the court ultimately concluded that SCRAP had standing to sue.
Since that time, both as an appellate attorney with the United States Department of Justice and in private practice, Proto has orchestrated legal, cultural, and political challenges on behalf of public and private entities. Widely held as a leading environmental litigator, he fought against the construction of highways on civil rights grounds, coal-fired utility plants, the use of natural resources, and harm to Indian reservations.
In 1993, for example, Proto drafted a unique statutory scheme at the behest of the state of Hawaii that resulted in the conveyance of Kaho’olawe Island from the United States to Hawaii for the special use of native Hawaiians.
Another legal battle pitted Proto against the Walt Disney Company, which planned to open a park in Virginia near historically important Civil War sites. Working pro bono on behalf of the Natural Trust for Historic Preservation and Protect Historic America (a group of writers and historians including Pulitzer Prize-winning authors David McCullough and James McPherson), Proto achieved what some considered impossible — helping to stop Disney in its tracks.
In recognition of his legal expertise, Proto received the Department of Justice Special Commendation Award for Outstanding Service and the Environment and Natural Resources Division Award for Meritorious Service.
Proto’s passion extends to the arts. He sat on the board of directors of the Shubert and Long Wharf theaters in New Haven and, while in D.C., served as chair of the city of New Haven’s Committee for the Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Execution of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco. Working with director Tony Giordano, he also co-adapted from the original Dutch the musical drama, “The American Dream, The Story of Sacco and Vanzetti,” which was performed at New Haven’s Shubert Theatre in April 2002.
Proto, who grew up in a working class family in the Fair Haven section of the city, also chaired two mayoral inaugurations, and represented New Haven in a successful bid to stop the construction of regional shopping malls. Most recently he served, at Mayor Elicker’s and Congresswoman DeLauro’s request, as counsel and historical advisor on the committee that planned a new memorial in the Italian American neighborhood of Wooster Square, honoring the contributions of New Haven’s Italian immigrants.
In addition to his bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Southern, Proto holds holds two degrees from the George Washington University: a master’s in international affairs and a juris doctor. He is also a Fellow in the Royal Geographical Society of London.
Read Neil Thomas Proto’s commencement address to the graduating class, May 22, 1976
Read Proto’s thoughts on why he created the Scholar and Civic Fund in Law and
Social Justice in 2019
Read more in the Hartford Courant: CT state university grad commits $750K to the school. He has a goal in mind. (July 16, 2024)
Read more in Philanthropy Daily: Law, Legacy, and Learning. (July 26, 2024)
