Inadmissible

Not Seeing Scarlet — Rutgers Law School and Rutgers University may be part of a single legal entity, but District Judge Freda Wolfson , a distinguished alumna of both, says they’re separate enough to prevent a conflict of interest.

Jersey Asparagus Farms of Pittsgrove, the plaintiff in a civil racketeering suit alleging the university obtained patents on asparagus varieties by fraud, sought Wolfson’s recusal based on a plethora of connections between her and Rutgers. She and her husband Douglas Wolfson obtained bachelor’s and law degrees from Rutgers and one of their sons got his law degree there. She spoke at the law school convocation in 2009, won an outstanding law school alumnus award from the alumni association in 2002 and appears on the rutgers.edu website. Her late father-in-law, Kenneth Wolfson, taught at the university and has a graduate student common room and an annual law school prize named after him. And, in a graduation speech, Wolfson termed her links to the law school “substantial and abiding.”