U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will deliver Rhodes College’s annual Constitution Day lecture on October 3.
“We are honored to have Justice Breyer join us in Memphis,” Rhodes President Marjorie Hass says. “Our community will get a rare look behind the scenes of the Supreme Court. Lectures like this one are a key component of the transformational experience we provide for our students.”
“Justice Breyer is one of the most significant justices in recent Supreme Court history, and we are excited to welcome him to our campus and to our community,” says Timothy S. Huebner, Associate Provost and Irma O. Sternberg Professor of History.
Justice Breyer was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1994. He was born in San Francisco and is a graduate of Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard Law School. He taught law at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government. He worked as a Supreme Court law clerk, a Justice Department attorney, Assistant Watergate Special Prosecutor, and Chief Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Carter appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in 1980, where he became the Chief Judge in 1990. Justice Breyer has authored many articles about administrative law and regulation as well as three books on the Court and constitutional interpretation.
In addition to the lecture, Huebner will be teaching a course at the college’s Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning titled “Justice Breyer’s Constitution.”
Rhodes College has deep connections to the nation’s highest court. Memphis native and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was a graduate of Rhodes, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the college’s annual Constitution Day Lecture in 2015. Dr. Huebner serves as associate editor of the Journal of Supreme Court History, published three times a year by the Supreme Court Historical Society in Washington, D.C.
The lecture will take place in McNeill Concert Hall at 6 p.m. on October 3. The event is open to the public; seating is limited. The event will be livestreamed on Rhodes.edu.