The Hero's Welcome

By Robert S. Oakes - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. DIGITAL ID: <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b07877">cph 3b07877</a>, Public Domain, Link

Aye, the hour grows late, and we've time fair nay mair tales...what's that? I promised one? Aye, so I did. The year was 1987, and Uncle John was a law student, at Columbia Law School, a lowly first year student at the time. The Law School was convening a celebration of the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, and then-Chief Justice Rehnquist was there, but he was not the focus of the event. No, CLS had decided to honor the contribution to constitutional law of Associate Justice, William J. Brennan. The event was divided, like Gallia, into three parts. First, a relatively brief gathering, open to all, where Dean Black, Rehnquist (and, if I remember aright, Justice Thurgood Marshall) spoke about Brennan, and his jurisprudence. Brennan himself said a few words, and the event recessed. The second part was a formal dinner, the tickets for which were prohibitively expensive. When I told my then-significant other, Holly, about it, she was fiercely determined we should attend. She insisted on buying the tickets (she was working, I was not; at the time CLS discouraged first years from working during term.) When we bought the tickets, the woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow that we should be attending. It was a very generous gift on her part, and we went in our best. True fact: As far as I could tell, I was the only student there except for one 2L I recognized who was working the event as a waiter. Another True Fact (tm): Other than my professors, most of whom were socializing with each other, the judges and scholars from other places who were gathered,I didn't know any of the people there. I was seated--as happened several times in my first year--next to Visiting Professor Arthur Chaskalson, an anti-apartheid lawyer from South Africa, (praise to Jack Greenberg for inviting him!) who was one of the bravest people I've ever met, and was courtly and gracious as always (he had to be sick of me turning u at all these dinners, and invariably being his companion, but he never showed it.) As Arthur (what? He told me to call him Arthur. He was a mensch, ok?) was caught up in the social whirl. Holly and I were pretty much deserted, until my Torts professor, Kendall Thomas, came over to keep us company a bit. Always one to look after the underdog, and for this one night I was that, Professor Thomas visited with us a bit, made Holly laugh, and went on his way. Dinner ensued, and then--well, this: The desserts and liqueurs were wheeled out, and the large cluster of academics, judges and Illustrious Alumni and Visitors swooped down on them with a remorseless efficiency. Justice Brennan stood all alone, for just a moment. Holly, God bless her, pushed me in the lower back, and hissed "Go SAY something to him." So I did. I have no idea what undergraduate gabble I spewed, but he took my hand, and as I was about to stagger off, having failed to communicate to this great man in my chosen profession, he wouldn't let me go. He insisted on talking to me, and asked me questions about what I hoped to do and be. Somehow he closed the gap of age and eminence, and I relaxed, and it was a lovely conversation. He caught eye of Holly, who was a very pretty woman, and beckoned her over. And he charmed us both. Not with facile charm, but by being interested in us as people. He teased us--"you're headed to Legal Aid," he said to me (and years later Vivian Bergerwould make that happen), and he praised Holly's acting ambitions, and brilliance was in the air. We left, awed, but warmed and excited about the potential in our young lives. After graduation, when I published my first law review article, on the First Amendment, the subject on which the now-retired Justice was the greatest living expert, I sent him an offprint, thanking him for his kindness that night. To my shock, I received a reply--Justice Brennan thanked me for the article, saying he was sure he would read it "with pleasure and profit" and thanking me for thinking of him. His signature was spidery but clear. I framed that letter, and it hangs in my office to this day. One is not often blessed by one's heroes.