Good afternoon and welcome once again to alumni weekend. Each year, the Yale Law SchoolAssociation Provides an award to an outstanding graduate. It is our way of recognizing extraordinary alumni that have made contributions to the legal profession. We are a tiny school but we have exercised an outsized influence on the development of american law and public life. Our award of merit has gone two president s like gerald ford and bill clinton. It has gone to senators like Jack Danforth, arlen specter, joseph lieberman, and paul tsongas. It has gone to cabinet officials like hillary clinton, edward leavy, robert rubin. Governors like scranton, mayors like john lindsay, and outstanding state judges. Today we continue that tradition by honoring three alumni who, without any question, have contributed immensely to the substance of american law. Today we honor three justices of the United StatesSupreme Court. The tale of each of these justices is a quintessentially american story, a story of upward mobility, hard work, of staggering achievement and great inborn talent. In different ways and in the name of different ideals, each of our honorees has already left an indelible mark on the shape of our jurisprudence. For as far back as anyone can remember, the school has been the site of passionate argument and disagreement. We have always nourished students in the pursuit of their own values and strive to help young men and women become as thoughtful and as effective as they can possibly be as they work out for themselves how best to comprehend this large and complex world. Every year, our alumni graduate with different worldviews and that is good. If we have done our job right, however, our graduates will share one thing. They will appreciate the value of reason, dialogue, open and productive conversation. They will listen to those whom they disagree with. Commitment to these values is a Precious Resource in todays world. Without respect and mutual without respect and mutual engagement, virtues that lie at the heart of the education that yale strives to provide, i fear for the future of our nation. The Supreme Court has always been at the heart of implacable controversy. I cannot begin to imagine the maelstrom of pressure that must engulfed every justice. In no institution are the values of the yale education more salient than the Supreme Court. It is my pleasure to welcome back these three justices who have each displayed the fortitude and virtuosity necessary to succeed in the highly pressurized chamber of the court. It is a real pleasure to welcome them back to a space that is safe for dialogue and discussion and oriented to bringing out the best that is in each of us in the hope that we will discover there, in ourselves, shared values and aspirations. Each of the justices we honor today graduated from yale in the 1970s. The biography of the justices in the program before you, so in the interest of time, and of allowing you to hear directly from them, i will not repeat those biographies. In fact, i will be very brief. I will say only that in coming to yale, each of these three enriched the community in ways that foreshadowed how they would enrich the entire country in their role as justices of the Supreme Court. I will introduce the justices in order of seniority. The first to graduate from yale in 1974 was Justice Clarence thomas. Justice thomas had been born into racial segregation and poverty. The house in which he spent his earliest years had no Running Water and only a single electric light. When he was seven, he was sent to live with his grandfather who he would later describe as the greatest man he had ever known. He stressed the importance of education so that Young Clarence could one day hold down a coat and tie job. Even though he now wears robes instead of coats and ties, i am guessing his grandfather would still be proud. His resources as a student at yale were so limited that when his son jamal was born he could not afford a place for his child to sleep. So dean jim thomas, who is here today, lent Justice Thomas his own family crib. Before classes began he secured a job with Legal Assistance. Frank cochran remembers thomas as a quick learner, very well organized, and the kind of person you were able to trust to do the work well. He brought the same philosophy to his studies. He obtained special permission to carry the maximum number of credits and he subjected himself to a rigorous curriculum of corporate law, bankruptcy, and commercial transactions. Made a habit of staying at the library until it closed at 1 00 in the morning. It was clear from the beginning just how smart he was. Thomass diligence was equaled by his sociability which led to enduring relationships with students and faculty. He soon became close with the pioneering tax scholar boris and the civil rights professor Thomas Emerson and with clinton johnstone, a Yale Institution who passed away this year. Around the end of his first spring, thomas lost his wallet and had it returned to him by a fellow classmate named john bolton. They became fast friends. Their discussion of politics made thomas hesitate before casting a ballot for mcgovern in 1972. His voting preferences may have changed but his ability to relate to others has not. There are many yield law students who go on to clerk of yale law students are going to clerk of the Supreme Court and to a person they praise Justice Thomas. They describe his kindness and his infectious laugh. They celebrate his deep personal humanity and his constant effort to reach out and to be helpful to them regardless of political beliefs. And that is no small thing for a justice in robes. There can be no doubt as to his dedication. No justice is as fearless as Justice Clarence thomas. Appointed to the court in 1991 at the age of 43, he has been called the courts intellectual conservative path breaker. He has passionately defended his convictions even when few agreed until gradually, and in no small part due to the force of his reasoning, his views have made their way into the legal mainstream. He has been compared to John Marshall harlan. Eugene volokh has suggested that he should be counted alongside holmes and marshall as a visionary. Court watching is always a tricky business and no one has made that clearer than our second justice, samuel alito, who, in his prizewinning note, analyze the behind the scenes negotiations in the early clause cases like maccallum. In that note, he catalogued, and i am quoting him, a long list of outwardly plausible but that badly mistaken interpretations that resulted from attempts to discern motivations of justices. Even as a student he understood that outsiders cannot begin to guess at the negotiations and the endless compromises involved in constructing an opinion for the court. If you examine the career of Justice Thomas, you will find it dedicated to Public Service. So also, the career of samuel alito from the United StatesAttorney Office to the office of Legal Counsel to the Third Circuit court of appeals to his current chambers. Public service was in his genes. His father, an italian immigrant who taught high school history. His mother was a school principal. Both were the first in their families to attend college. At yale, he was the perfect law student. He did everything right. Good friends with all. In short order, Justice Alito became the editor of the law journal. Peter, an alumnus from class of 1978, members seeing him in class, where he would always sit in the front row, staring intently at the professor. He never took a note and he never raised his hand but whenever there was a question that no one else could answer, the professor would inevitably call on samuel alito, who would always nail it. Appointed in 2006, he enjoys a reputation among his colleagues as someone with the utmost integrity, as a straight shooter who calls them as he sees them. He is a formidable jurist who combines a methodological approach and a mastery of craft that has led legal linguist bryan garner to label him an exemplar of legal style who writes with power and with clarity. It is clear that he is assuming a position of leadership, authoring major opinions that express conviction. At the risk of being merely another uninformed outsider, i would venture to guess that he is now conducting the very negotiations that he studied years ago as a yale student and i would further venture to guess that the force of his presence and his intellect is hard to resist. Our third and final honoree is Justice Sonia sotomayor. She graduated from yale in 1979. Her life story is one of determination and grit. Born in the east bronx from parents who immigrated from puerto rico during world war ii, Justice Sotomayor grew up in a family that refused to accept that economic disadvantage would determine what their children would become. Her mother was famous in the projects for saving up to buy sonia and her brother, now a doctor, a complete edition of encyclopedia britannica. The books paid off. After graduating summa cum laude, she headed straight to Yale Law School where she developed a reputation for having an analytical mind, a balanced perspective, and a fearless disposition. Martha, her classmate and now the dean at another law school up the road [laughter] described her as tough, clear, and very quick on her feet. Her torts exam was remarkable. [laughter] first termers tend to be careful. They do not want to take chances. But sonia was a rare person who from the very beginning took chances. As a student she chose to study matters that were close to her heart. Her yale law journal note, who her adviser believes is the best work written on these subjects, concerned potential puerto rican statehood. Stephen carter remembers how she was scrupulous by giving the strongest possible form two positions at which she disagreed. The journal found her note so important that it issued a press release to announce the publication. Justice sotomayor was appointed to the court in 2009. Like justices thomas and alito, her path had a life of dedication to Public Service. She is the only current Supreme Court justice who has experience as a District Court judge and this informs her perspective. A prominent scholar has written that her experience has given the court a perspective on criminal law that it has been lacking on how everyday people interact with it. What has been said about Justice Sotomayors criminal jurisprudence can be said about her jurisprudence generally. She has affirmed her commitment to realizing the rule of law in its fullest sense, driven by her belief that society is best served by, and i am quoting now, a shared acceptance of the laws judgment. The idea that the law must be legitimate to all americans is a noble and essential ideal. And anyone who has followed her work on the court knows that she has pursued it with eloquence and tenacity. So, my fellow alums, we have on the stage today three remarkable graduates of the school. Three graduates have answered the call to Public Service and achievement and who have already made an unmistakable mark on the substance of american law. Each of you has been an inspiration to the Young Students that we teach, each in your own way. And for giving them faith in the value of law, and the profession of law, and the possibilities of law, we thank you and confer upon you the Yale Law School award of merit, which looks like this. You will each get this sent to you. As you can see, it has a picture of lady justice in it which comes from the windows of the sterling law building. I know that wherever lady justice is currently living, she is very proud of each one of you. Congratulations. [applause] so now we turn to the highlight of the afternoon, which is a conversation between justices thomas, alito, and sotomayor, and our own kate. Her career includes a stint as an attorney and counselor for the for the council of economic advisers and also 25 years as athan professor at this law school, where she has written passionately about constitutional law and criminal procedure. When this school sought an interim dean, it unanimously turned to kate. I look forward to the conversation that she will lead with our three largerthanlife honorees. [applause] it is a real treat to have you back here. Clarence and sonia, we have decided to go informal. They are celebrating their reunions. Sam, you will be able to see judge garth later on. Brantford. D up to we hope your whole weekend goes wonderful and we are very excited. We have less than an hour and a half but sometime to get to know you better. My questions will proceed in three parts. First we want to learn about your life off the bench. And then about your careers before you joined the Supreme Court. And finally some questions about your work on the court. If there is a commonality, a common theme, it is the commonality between you in some respects. So, robert spoke of your backgrounds and we surely all took notes that none of you came from a family of lawyers. You each chose this path with some independence and grit. I will ask you about where you got that grit to study law. Sonia, let me begin with you. You are quoted as saying i was going to go to college and become an attorney and i knew that when i was 10. I want to ask you not so much what made you want to be an attorney but what did becoming a lawyer mean for you at that tender age of 10 . Oh. I thought you were going to ask has it meant to me, to say what i was thinking at 10 was not terribly sophisticated. [laughter] but i understood that despite the repetitive theme of the perry mason shows which introduced me to the law, that each case was different. There were different people doing different kinds of work interested in different parts of the world and the society they were in. And i had a sense that the law gave one that opportunity to learn new things constantly. But in high school i worked in an office. Back then it was one man and a bunch of women, ok . In the Business Office of a hospital. I used to relieve them during the summer when they went on vacation. And i knew from the repetitiveness of the work that i wanted something that would be constantly stimulating. I was not thinking, back then, in the global terms i subsequently developed. And so that has changed. What law is to me now and what made me choose it ultimately in terms of for sure the career i was going to do after college was that it was service. We will hear more about what it has become to you. Your princeton yearbook quotes you of having said that you dreamed of warming a seat on the Supreme Court. I dont know if you really said that, but is there some aspect of your early life or early professional experience that is particularly important in achieving that . I did say it as a joke. [laughter] i was thinking of saying she dreams of playing in the world series you would have referred that. You have been to baseball camp. Both ideas seemed equally plausible at that point. A couple of things got me interested in the law. My father did research for the new Jersey Legislature and used to discuss that with us and it seems very interesting. After reynolds versus sims was decided, he had the job of drawing to legislative and Congressional District with date discuss that as well. I can remember lying in bed and listening to the clank of the mechanical adding machine which shows you how Much Technology has changed. He was doing different maps to make districts with equal population so that was one thing. The other thing that got me interested in law was debating. One year, the National HighSchool Debate topic had to do with a constitutional criminal procedure question and it just fascinated me. There was a little book put out that provided arguments on both sides of this question that was written by someone who at the time was labeled as a law clerk on the california Supreme Court. That was the first time i ever saw the word law clerk. The name of this individual was laurence tribe. Those were the two of the things that got me interested. Clarence, unlike your colleagues, you once said you never wanted to be on the court, that you preferred a private and anonymous life. What changed your mind and are you glad you changed it . I dont know if i ever changed my mind. [laughter] i think what changed is when the president calls, you always say yes, mr. President and that gets you into these forrest gump situations. I was just reflecting on my colleagues. First of all, it is an honor to be here with them. It is a bit overwhelming. Its a particular honor to be here with my wife, virginia, who is totally my best friend in the world. This is far more special than what at the time i thought my graduation was. I did not think about being a lawyer. I thought about seeing a priest. That was my dream, when you are altar boy, the next step is to determine whether you have a vocation and go on to the minor seminary and that was the major change in my life in 1964. And you went to seminary for a year. I went to seminary for four years, including my first year of college. Then the late 1960s happened. A lot of things happened, summer of 1968, including loss of vocation and loss o