Justice Kennedy Loves To Teach
Many older Pacific McGeorge alumni remember Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy from his days on campus as a Constitutional Law professor. Kennedy taught here from 1965 until his appointment to the high court in 1988.
But a select number of more recent American law students know him from his annual summer trek to Salzburg, Austria. Kennedy will be teaching in Pacific McGeorge’s summer abroad programs for the 21st consecutive year in 2010. He first taught the course in London in 1989 and enjoyed it so much he continued to teach it each summer after the program was moved to Salzburg in 1990.
Other Supreme Court justices make occasionally appearances at summer programs around the world, but teaching is truly a labor of love to Kennedy. The Sacramento native is as at home in the classroom as he is on the high court bench. And the hundred-plus students that sit in his Salzburg classroom for three weeks each July are astounded, entertained, even mesmerized.
“Amazing” is the word most often used in student critiques of his course. “A once-in a lifetime experience” is another frequent comment. Kennedy is not only a legal genius, he’s a personable professor deeply interested in helping each of the young people that come in front of him find their way in the legal profession and make a contribution to society and the world.
Here, in his own words, one can get a sense of the man as a teacher.
What Justice Kennedy Tells His Students
“One time, one of my Con Law night students said, ‘I’m sorry, professor, I haven’t read the case.’ I said, ‘That’s good. The judge who wrote it hadn’t read it, either.’ Then the other students came to the rescue of their comrade."
“Look, I’m not here to demonstrate that I know more constitutional law than you do; I will stipulate to that. Just give me your best reaction to the issue.”
“Within certain generous reason, I don’t care what you think; I care passionately how you think.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having an initial reaction that this is right or wrong, or good or bad, or black and white. But the discipline of any academic exercise is to take what might be an instinctive reaction and make it into a semantic principle, a verbal formulation. Then you must see whether this is logical. Then you must see whether it accords with the law and the constitution, and your own ethics and your own sense of morality. If at any step in the process you have some doubts about your initial instinct, you have to go back and change it.”
“When you go to court, when you represent a client, you’re going to be asked questions by the judge. You have to know how this dialogue, this dynamic, this discourse, works. So, if you don’t become engaged, you’re not getting your money’s worth. Go for it.”
“I’ve never taught a course in which I haven’t had to rethink some of my earlier assumptions. I’ve never worked with a group of students where I didn’t learn something.”
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