Inducted in 2022
Attorney
Judge, US District Court for the Eastern District of New York

As affirmed in its very mission statement, Fordham Prep has always striven to graduate men who are committed to promoting justice.  That the Honorable William Kuntz II, Class of 1968, has devoted his life to this very cause, there can be no doubt. As far back as his Prep and Harvard days, throughout his time with some of Manhattan's most prestigious law firms, and from his seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Judge Kuntz' insight and clarity have made him an unfailing and unmistakable voice against injustice in its many forms.

William Francis Kuntz II was born in Bedford – Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in 1950 on June 24th, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, not only the very date of Fordham’s founding, but also the birthday of Fordham Prep and University’s founder, Archbishop John Hughes.  Obviously, Bill Kuntz was destined to be a Ram from day one.

His father, William Francis Kuntz I, was a director at the Social Security Administration who had also taught high school for a time; his mother, Margaret Evelyn Brown Kuntz, was a nurse. Pious and hardworking, William and Margaret raised Little Bill and his brother, Eric, in the Polo Grounds and Colonial Park Projects in Harlem, New York and were parishioners of the Church of the Resurrection on West 151st Street where the boys would also attend grammar school.

Graduating Resurrection in 1964, Bill would head uptown to begin his time at Fordham Prep.  Eric would follow two years later, a member of the Class of 1970. Midway through Bill’s Hughes Hall years, the family would relocate to the treelined neighborhood of Queens Village and the Kuntz Brothers’ quick subway ride up to Fordham Road would suddenly become an hours-long daily adventure — a formative experience they would have in common with a young Prep teacher at the time: fellow alum and Hall of Honor inductee, Fr. (then Mr.) Nicholas Lombardi, SJ ’61.  Lombardi’s family had made the same move a decade earlier during his own Prep days.

Not easily daunted, the intrepid and disciplined newly-minted Queensites would unquestionably continue their studies at Rose Hill: the Prep meant so very much to them and their proud parents — and always would.  In fact, the Honorable William Kuntz has often claimed that Fordham Prep was the best institution he had ever attended.

Bill was an extraordinarily well-rounded student during his time at the Prep. He was a member of the Maroon Key Honor Society and would serve as Student Government president in his senior year.  He played center for the Basketball Rams on both the JV and varsity levels, was an officer of the Athletic Council, wrote for Letters and Rampart, performed in talent shows and spring musicals, debated with the Oratory and Extemporaneous Speaking Club, and was involved with the devotional and charitable facets of school life with the sodalities and the Christian Action Program: a classic Prepman through and through.

Kuntz would have many horizon-broadening experiences during his high school years, experiences that would shape the way he saw the world and would resonate with him always: coming to understand the complexity and beauty of Latin sentence structure with Fr. Francis Fahey; going to the opera for the first time on a Metropolitan Day field trip; singing the theme from Exodus on the Collins Auditorium stage in his distinctive basso profundo: “This land is mine; God gave this land to me, this brave and ancient land to me.”

After his Prep graduation, William would embark on a remarkable Harvard career that would span eleven years and four degrees. The late ’60s were, of course, a tumultuous and revolutionary period in our country’s history, but even as a young man, Kuntz would feel that his four years of Jesuit education had oriented him towards the right and the just, and had prepared him “to confront and navigate with quiet confidence” the social issues of the day.  He earned his bachelor’s in American history in 1972, a master’s in 1974, and through a joint program with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Law, a J.D. in 1977 and a Ph.D. in 1979. His dissertation, Criminal Sentencing in Three Nineteenth-Century Cities: New York, Boston, & Philadelphia, would later be published in hardcover and would become a law library staple.

Kuntz began his professional life at the law firm of Sherman & Sterling moving on to a partnership at Milgrim, Thomajan, Jacobs & Lee in 1986, then at Seward & Kissel in 1994, at Torys in 2001, and at Baker Hostetler in 2005. Along the way, he has worked as counsel at Constantine Cannon, taught American legal history at Brooklyn Law School, and served on the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board from the 1980s through 2010.

In 2011, President Barack Obama nominated William F. Kuntz II to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York noting that Kuntz would be “a distinguished public servant and a valuable addition” to the federal bench. He was rated “unanimously well-qualified” by the American Bar Association, sat for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that May, was confirmed to the position by the Senate on October 3, 2011, and was commissioned the next day. Reflecting upon his tenure on the court, Judge Kuntz has noted, “It is important to remember that we are all moral actors.”

As the keynote speaker at the Prep’s 2019 Commencement Ceremony, the Honorable William Kuntz would remark that he feels truly blessed by having had such fine parents who valued education and personal moral responsibility, by the opportunities that were afforded to him both at the Prep and beyond, by the love and support of his wonderful wife, by his amazing children, and by the encouragement and camaraderie of his friends, colleagues, and fellow parishioners.  He went on to exhort the assembled graduates to remember always “that the life of our Lord and Savior, the One Who gave His name to the Jesuits, Who educated each of us, exemplified what we all know: we come through the crucible of our struggles, our failures, and our successes to reach our eternal goal — or as Fr. Fahey would say, ‘Per Crucem, ad Lucem —  through the Cross, to the Light.”

Judge Kuntz is married to Alice Beal, whom he wed in 1978, a palliative care physician who was highlighted on PBS’ series Nova for her work during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Alice has not only been Bill’s partner in life, but also in philanthropy.  Together they have devoted their time, talent, and resources to the many programs and institutions that are important to them, including Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja, Nigeria and the Oratory Church of St. Boniface in Brooklyn, New York.  The parents of three, Elizabeth, Katharine, and William — who has carried on the Maroon legacy of his father and uncle as a graduate of Fordham Law — Judge Kuntz and Dr. Beal are well-known and admired for their faith, compassion, and generosity.

From Bedford-Stuy, to Harlem, to the Bronx and Queens, to Cambridge and back to Manhattan, to the Federal Court, and home again to Brooklyn, the boy born on Founder’s Day has grown up to prove himself a man of great conviction, a “Man for Others” in every sense of the phrase, and a man whom Fordham Prep is proud to number among its loyal sons and true.