Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor, award-winning author and former law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, gave a lecture commemorating the former Supreme Court justice’s career to a packed Mandeville Auditorium on Nov. 22, wrapping up Thurgood Marshall College’s first annual Thurgood Marshall Week.
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Kennedy, author of “”Race, Crime and the Law”” and the recently published and controversial “”Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word,”” worked closely with Marshall in researching cases throughout 1983 and 1984.
The lecture was preceded by a dinner reception, during which Kennedy spoke with Marshall students. Tim Lessler, a Marshall freshman, attended the dinner.
“”He told really interesting stories about Marshall’s cases,”” Lessler said. “”It made what the college is about seem more relevant. The whole week was a great way to bring the college together.””
Kennedy’s lecture traced Marshall’s long career as a lawyer and pioneer for black equality.
“”[Marshall] really has no peer,”” Kennedy said. “”No lawyer in American history has had a career as broad as his.””
Marshall began his career as a civil attorney, first privately and subsequently as a lead lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He brought groundbreaking cases to the Supreme Court, including the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of schools in the U.S.
“”Thurgood Marshall worked for a long time in the Jim Crow regime under the ‘separate but equal’ policies, but he said, ‘Fine, if they’re separate but equal, then let’s make sure they’re equal,'”” Kennedy said.
Marshall was eventually appointed as the first black solicitor general by President John F. Kennedy and first black Supreme Court justice by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served as a justice for 24 years, during which he compiled a distinctive record as a defender of freedom of speech, organized labor, and minority and gender equality.
Kennedy also pointed out that, alongside Marshall’s many accomplishments, some of his decisions must be looked at critically.
“”I think he was a great person, but great people in the crucible of politics have to face dilemmas and make decisions, and some that Thurgood Marshall made I think were regrettable,”” Kennedy said.
This included the 1944 Korematsu v. the United States case in which a divided Supreme Court upheld that it was constitutional for the U.S. military to force persons of Japanese ancestry to go to internment camps. Kennedy pointed out that the NAACP did not file a brief on this case.
Kennedy concluded by highlighting the importance of remembering the career of Thurgood Marshall College’s namesake.
“”He was a person who had seen the darkest, ugliest, dreariest aspects of American society, but was also a person who in his own life and career saw the promise of American life,”” Kennedy said.
Thurgood Marshall Week included the Marshallpalooza! festival and a preview of the commemorative Thurgood Marshall stamp, which was unveiled by the U.S. Postal Service in September and will be circulated by January 2003.
