The Long Run for Justice: 5k Benefits Association for Public Interest Law and Marks Prof’s 60-year Running Career

CAMDEN — Roger Clark, Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers Law–Camden, might be known the world over as a human rights and criminal law scholar, but he’s also made his international footprint literally: he’s run in more than 50 countries and competed in races from Oahu to Ocean City.

This Saturday, April 5 at 9 a.m., a 5k race along the Camden Waterfront will benefit  the Rutgers Law–Camden Association for Public Interest Law and celebrate Clark’s 60 years of running with the professor donating to APIL for the first 60 runners to beat him in the race.

The fourth annual Run for Justice, which starts at the Rutgers–Camden Athletic and Fitness Center on Third Street, between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and proceeds along the Camden Waterfront, will help fund law students working in local public interest positions this summer. Last summer, APIL fellowship recipients offered their services to a variety of local and national public interest entities, including the Fair Share Housing Center, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Legal Clinic for the Disabled in Philadelphia.

“I started running in 1954 in New Zealand to prepare for my high school cross country in which everybody was expected to compete,” says Clark, who has written or edited 12 books, more than 100 articles and book chapters, and was instrumental in establishing the International Criminal Court in The Hague. “I found I liked the cross-country running more than rugby. Needless to say I am a lot slower than when I was at my peak in the early 1960s.”

In addition to running in races in exotic locales like Tibet, Liechtenstein, and the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, Clark runs through Camden each week. The city has come to expect his steady pace coursing through routes that include departing from the law school to Walt Whitman’s tomb in Harleigh Cemetery. The Rutgers Law–Camden professor says what surprises him most about running in Camden is how friendly and encouraging people are.

Registration for the Run for Justice is $15 for students with ID; $20 for the general public pre-race; $25 for the general public on race day; and $15 to participate in the one-mile walk.

Awards and prizes will be given to top three male and female finishers in each age category and for best costume.

To register for Run for Justice, visit runsignup.com/Race/Register?raceId=557.

For directions to Rutgers–Camden, visit camden.rutgers.edu/resources/getting-to-campus.