ABA Bestows Its Highest Honor on Justice Kennedy
August 14, 2007FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 14, 2007 – Sacramento, CA
Contact:
Mike Curran
University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law
3200 Fifth Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95817
916-739-7115
The American Bar Association honored Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy with its highest award, the ABA Medal, on August 13 in San Francisco at the group's annual meeting. The award recognizes exceptionally distinguished service to the cause of American jurisprudence.
Kennedy, who has been a member of the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law since 1965, was honored for his dedication to preserving and promoting the rule of law and his leadership role on several important legal initiatives including federal sentencing reform.
"There are so many reasons to honor this justice," said ABA President Karen J. Mathis. "He deserves this honor most, however, because he singly represents the best of our profession.He's a fighter for justice and an advocate for all -- an example for every judge, every lawyer and every law professor, not just in America but all over the world."
In accepting the award, Justice Kennedy challenged the membership of the world's largest legal organization to promote law by reaching out to young people in impoverished nations and making them converts in the fight against lawlessness. "The rule of law and your own freedom are not secure unless you address problems in those countries," he said.
A Sacramento native, Kennedy earned his law degree from Harvard and practiced law in San Francisco before returning to his hometown in the mid-1960s. The late Dean Gordon D. Schaber recruited the young lawyer to teach constitutional law as an adjunct professor one night a week. Kennedy took an immediate liking to the classroom and continued his service to the law school after joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1975. He ascended to the high court in February 1988 following his nomination by President Ronald Reagan. He continues to teach annually in Pacific McGeorge's Summer Salzburg Program, a three-week session in Austria that attracts law students from around the world.
Past recipients of the ABA Medal include Justices William Brennan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O'Connor.
