GENE P. SCHULTZ, 51; WAS NATIONAL AUTHORITY ON AIDS AND THE LAW

Gene P. Schultz, who taught criminal law at St. Louis University for 23 years and was a national authority on AIDS and the law, died Saturday (Sept. 17, 1994) at Barnes Hospital of complications from AIDS. He was 51 and lived in St. Louis.

Mr. Schultz was long active in civil liberties and law reform issues. He helped to draft the current Missouri Criminal Code and the state's jury instructions in criminal cases.

He directed the university law school's criminal law clinic and taught seminars on criminal procedure and evidence and on AIDS and public health and the law. His former students include many practicing attorneys and several judges here.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Anna C. Forder remembered Mr. Schultz as being "on the cutting edge of clinical education for his students, getting them out of the classroom and into the courtrooms and the prosecutor's and public defender's offices for practical knowledge. . . ."

Arlene Zarembka, a lawyer in St. Louis and a former student, worked closely with him in the Privacy Rights Education Project, which last year helped squelch a statewide ballot initiative to strike down ordinances in St. Louis and other Missouri cities that protect gay people from discrimination in jobs and housing.

She said Mr. Schultz was instrumental in moving the Legislature and politicians forward in support of equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. "His writings moved the whole legal profession forward on gay issues," she said.

Mr. Schultz was a past president and board member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri and a longtime adviser and lobbyist for the group. Executive director Joyce Armstrong said he made important gains and "changed some minds in Jefferson City" in the continuing fights to end overcrowding in the St. Louis city jail and overturn state sexual misconduct laws.

On Saturday, the ACLU board awarded Mr. Schultz its highest honor, the Civil Liberties Award.

He was co-counsel in the 1988 landmark case entitling Missourians with AIDS to get Medicaid reimbursement for the drug AZT. He was co-author of the leading law school textbook on AIDS and the law, and wrote or edited four other books and numerous scholarly articles on criminal law.

A graduate of Columbia University Law School, he was a visiting professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1983 and at the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University in England in 1984. He was president of the St. Louis University Faculty Senate in 1984-86.

A memorial service will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 28, at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church, Grand and Lindell boulevards. Private funeral services and burial will be held this week in his hometown, Dundee, Ill., near Chicago.

Among survivors are his mother, Esther Schultz of Dundee, and a sister, Mary Ann Ruppert of Fort Wayne, Ind.

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 21, 1994, WEDNESDAY, FIVE STAR Edition)

Return to Columbia AIDS Memorial List