Justice Anthony Kennedy urges law students to rethink the judiciary

Justice Anthony Kennedy ’58, the oldest living former Supreme Court justice, discussed his storied career and decried current politics with a packed room of faculty, distinguished guests and Stanford Law and undergraduate students at Stanford Law School Thursday night.

Drawing largely from his new book, “Life, Law & Liberty,” Kennedy, whose talk was moderated by Provost Jenny Martinez, chronicled his development, beginning with his love of the American West and spanning all the way to his current vision of America. 

Kennedy emphasized the importance of civil discourse, both in his own tenure in the court as well as in current American institutions. He also spoke about his formative experience as a page for the California State legislature. 

“I could look at the Senate, and they would have these terrific arguments, and then they would all get lunch together,” he said. It was a type of civility Kennedy strived to model during his own time on the Court, where he and Justice John Paul Stevens served as a de facto “civility committee,” he said. 

“[Stevens] would go see [Justice Antonin] Scalia,” Kennedy said “And I would go see [Justice William J.] Brennan [Jr.]. And we would ask them to tone things down.”

Kennedy credited this conciliatory approach to his time at Stanford, and in particular, his constitutional law Professor Robert Horn. “That’s where [I learned to] choose skills of argumentation…asking a number of questions to bring you to my point of view, to convince you that I’m right,” he said. 

Kennedy also advocated for public discourse. “Free speech allows, encourages, protects, [and] holds for debate,” said Kennedy.

Many members of the audience felt it was a powerful message.

“Justice Kennedy has been a model for many people of civility and decency and dialogue respectfully,” said Leif Wenar, faculty director for the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. 

In addition to stressing how civil, unregulated dialogue allows for the best ideas to emerge, Kennedy noted the unique role the U.S. plays in free speech protections.

However, Kennedy also delivered a blunt warning about the waning of such discourse, in both Washington and on our digital platforms. He honed in on how the internet’s tendency to filter engagement by similar political affiliations leads to radicalization.

“There’s also [this belief that] you are a member of Party X, and therefore you must think this. That’s not necessary,” said Kennedy. 

Kennedy also criticized the current state of the American Congress.

“It’s just horrifying for me to see on our television. How about the officials—who are in the executive branch, who are in Congress—going on television, and using vulgar, four-letter words,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy credited his legal thinking on his formative time at both Stanford and beyond. In particular, he was horrified by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to protect their Constitutional rights, particularly in Korematsu v. United States. Kennedy himself experienced the internment of one of his best childhood friends. 

“There was a knock on my door, and he had his favorite [samurai] toy and he gave it to me. And I never saw him again.” This experience would ultimately come to shape Kennedy’s judicial philosophy: “The law affects real people.”

Speaking to a primarily law-school audience, Kennedy further remarked, “It’s so important to see how your law impacts human lives.” 

But Kennedy also acknowledged that perspectives shift on the Court. As an example, he referenced how his decision to rule in favor of legalizing gay marriage Obergefell v. Hodges came after researching the equalization of gender roles in marriage across Europe and the Western tradition. 

Kennedy also cited the negative impacts of the criminalization of gay marriage, including how children of gay couples could then only have one legal parent. In urgent medical situations requiring parental approval, that sort of disadvantage could spell out life or death for a child. 

 “It is your duty, as a judge, in each and every case, to ask yourself again, why am I about to do this?” Kennedy said. “Why? You owe that to the litigants. You owe that to the judiciary. You owe that to yourself.” 

“[It was] a wonderful look into the early life and legal experiences of a Supreme Court justice,” said Creagh Factor ’27. “He was extremely sharp and witty despite his age.”

–

The post Justice Anthony Kennedy urges law students to rethink the judiciary appeared first on The Stanford Daily.