The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school for international relations at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, United States.
Fletcher is one of America's oldest graduate schools of international relations.[3][4] Each fall, Fletcher admits an average of 330 students to its various programs, of whom 40 percent are international students and around a quarter are U.S. minorities.[5]
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy was founded in 1933 with the bequest of Austin Barclay Fletcher, who left over $3 million to Tufts University upon his death in 1923. A third of these funds were dedicated "for the establishment and maintenance of a School of Law and Diplomacy, to be known as The Fletcher School of Law or "The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy." Fletcher envisioned "a school to prepare people for diplomatic service and to teach such matters as they come...[and] within it...a fundamental and thorough knowledge of the principles of international law upon which diplomacy is founded...[and] also a knowledge of many things of a geographic and economic nature which affect relations between nations."[6]
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy thereafter opened in 1933 under the joint administration of Harvard University and Tufts College. One of the first buildings acquired was Goddard Hall, which was converted into a library. Tufts College assumed exclusive responsibility for the administration of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1935. Between 1963 and 1965, Mugar Hall was constructed and later renovated in 2016 to serve the expanding needs of Fletcher.[7]
Since 2020, the school has de-emphasized its "Law and Diplomacy" mandate. Tufts University usually refers to it as "the Fletcher School." Its academic focus is weighted to climate activism and social justice.[8] Only about one-third of graduates go on to government diplomacy roles.[9]
In 2026, the school was designated as an undesirable organization in Russia.[10]
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_School_of_Law_and_Diplomacy
- http://fletcher.tufts.edu
