J. Brian Sheehan

Brian was born in Boston on December 12, 1948, to Elizabeth (Betty) Nagle and John C. Sheehan, M.D. He attended Yale University, where he was admitted into a selective five-year program in the African Studies department. As part of that program, he lived for a year in Mongu, Zambia, where he taught English at St. John’s College. After graduating with his Bachelor’s degree in 1971, Brian enrolled in law school at New York University, earning his Juris Doctor in 1974. Following law school, Brian enrolled in a PhD program at Columbia University. Columbia awarded Brian a doctorate in anthropology in 1981, and Columbia University Press published his dissertation, The Boston School Integration Dispute: Social Change and Legal Maneuvers, in 1984.

Brian’s career was multi-dimensional, often reflecting his interests in both anthropology and the law. As an Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, Brian taught Urban Anthropology and Legal Anthropology. At Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, where Brian was a Lecturer in the Department of Legal Studies, his course titles included Aborigines and the Law and Legal Anthropology. Brian was also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at William Patterson University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and Ramapo College, all in New Jersey.

Brian was a producer of the 1996 documentary film, A Leap of Faith, about an integrated school in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that enrolled both Protestant and Catholic children; he worked on the film, for over four years, assisting in its conceptualization and coordinating fieldwork, fund raising, and media relations for the project. Narrated by Liam Neeson, the film was a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival.

After leaving academia, Brian devoted himself to work that helped the disadvantaged. He handled grants research and writing for the prevention of crime and homelessness; represented mental health clients in commitment hearings for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate; and worked for the Mental Health Association of Morris County. Since 2017, Brian served as a pro bono attorney in the area of immigration law, for the American Friends Service Committee and Immigration Justice Campaign, and, most recently, for KIND, in Newark, N.J. His legal work included assisting unaccompanied minors, in asylum and other proceedings in federal immigration court. He’d recently helped a family from Central America gain legal status.

As befitting a scholar of anthropology, Brian loved to travel and explore the world, a fact reflected by the friendships he maintained with people scattered around the globe. While still in high school, he studied abroad in France. As a young man, he hitchhiked across the country. He taught in Australia and conducted research in South Africa. And while working on A Leap of Faith, he twice brought his young family to Ireland for extended summer stays. In his later years, Brian remained adventurous, traveling to Montreal, Mexico, Spain, and China prior to the pandemic.

Brian was best known for his kindness, his sense of humor, and his integrity. He loved to laugh and make others laugh, and he passed his dry wit and penchant for wry observations on to his sons, of whom he was most proud.

Brian is survived by his three sons, Nicholas (and his wife Rhiannon), Matthew (and his wife Kelly) and Daniel, his brother Rev. Myles J. Sheehan, S.J., M.D., his former spouse Noreen Connolly, his niece Jessica Jacobs, and four grandchildren whom he adored: Breandán (6), Catherine (Cece) (3), Wesley (3) and Edward Sheehan (Teddy) (1). He was preceded in death by his father John, his mother Elizabeth, and his sister Maureen.

In lieu of flowers, a donation in Brian’s memory may be made to KIND. https://supportkind.org/get-involved/give-to-kind/

Brian’s family has planned a visitation at Doane, Beal, & Ames Funeral Home on 160 West Main Street, Hyannis, Massachusetts, 02601 from 9:30-10:30 AM on Monday, September 12, 2022. The visitation will be followed by a funeral Mass at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville, Massachusetts at 11:00 AM. Brian will be laid to rest next to his sister Maureen in St. Francis Xavier Cemetery, also in Centerville.