Final Thoughts: Justice Kagan Remembers Her SCOTUS Colleague, Justice Scalia

On this episode of Our American Stories, for our 'Final Thoughts' series, Justice Elena Kagan, who viewed the Constitution differently than Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia, speaks about her friend.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
And today we have a final thoughts for you. And
this can be a eulogy, a remembrance of someone important
in your lives, or an American life who died. This
week's Final Thoughts feature comes from Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan,

(00:32):
honoring someone you might not expect. Someone completely unlike her
at least as it relates to the law, but completely
like her in this sense. Well, they're human beings who
loved other human beings and being with them. That person
she honored is the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia,

(00:55):
someone that she hunted with. In fact, he taught her
at a hunt. And the occasion of Justice Kagan speaking
about Justice Scalia was the dedication of George Mason University's
law school in his name. Let's drop in and take
a listen.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I'm deeply honored to participate in this dedication of the
Antonin Scalia Law School. Although I have to admit the
name strikes me as a little bit formal. I'm wondering
if I can substitute the word Dino. It's so fitting
it's so right that a fine law school like this

(01:38):
one should bear Justice Scalia's name. One reason that's true,
the obvious reason I suppose, has to do with what
Justice Scalia accomplished during his time on the bench. He'll
go down in history as one of the most important
Supreme Court justices ever and also one of the greatest

(02:00):
articulation of textualist and originalist principles. Communicated in that distinctive,
extraordinary prose did nothing less than transform our legal culture.
It changed the way almost all judges and so almost
all lawyers think and talk about the law, even if

(02:21):
they part ways at one or another point from his
interpretive theories. In reading a statute, does anyone now decline
to focus first on its text in context when addressing
constitutional meaning? Does anyone now ignore the founder's commitments? And

(02:43):
in defending an interpretive stance, even if not Justice Scalia's own,
does anyone dispute the need to constrain judges from acting
on their personal policy preferences. If the answer is no,
and the answer is no or mostly no, Justice Scalia

(03:08):
deserves much of the credit, and that is a legacy
worthy of a law school dedication. But there's another reason
George Mason couldn't have selected a better name for its
law school, and that's because no one was more enthusiastic,
more passionate about connecting with law students than Justice Scalia.

(03:32):
He visited and revisited law schools across the country to
talk about ideas. As the dean said, I once served
as dean of the law school he graduated from, so
I had the good fortune to host the Justice several times,
and those days were among the most fun I ever
had As dean. Justice Scalia turned it all on his brilliance,

(03:55):
his wit, his good cheer, and his well, let's say,
his confidence in the manifest rightness of all his opinions.
Now here's the way Justice Scalia described what he did
on those trips. He said this a few years back.

(04:18):
He said, I go to law schools just to make trouble.
I give lectures and stir up the students. It takes
several weeks for their professors to put them back on track.
Actually several weeks were rarely enough. Justice Scalia would go

(04:44):
from event to event to event, from group to group
to group, exciting students, challenging students, provoking students, charming students,
and making them think harder than they had ever thought
before about how to do law. But really, Justice Scalia

(05:07):
didn't need to show up in person to have that effect.
He could grab hold of students, shake them, and turn
them upside down solely by means of his written opinions.
He used to say that when he wrote law, students
were one of his target audiences, maybe his principal one,

(05:28):
and if my many hours teaching law were in any
way typical, he had an almost unerring instinct for what
would persuade them, or at least what would force them
to question some of their most settled thinking. Justice Scalia's
opinions mesmerize law students. Why shouldn't they. They're captivating style,

(05:53):
full of wit, dash and verve, The analytic rigor and precision,
The assistance upon logic and discipline in legal reasoning. The
ability to convey ideas in the way that will make
them most stick with the reader. The very presence of ideas,

(06:14):
deep thought provoking understandings of the way law should work.
If I heard it once from a student, I heard
it a thousand times, Professor Kagan, A student would say,
I didn't think I would ever agree with Justice Scalia.
But he just has to be right about this, and

(06:37):
so he was not always but often, And so law
students and generations to come will tell their professors. And
now some of those students will look up and see
Justice Scalia's name on their law school's building. What a great,
great thing. Congratulations to George Mason University, and congratulations to

(07:04):
the Nino Scalia Law School for memorializing, for celebrating this
most remarkable judge and teacher.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
This is our American Stories Final thoughts, Justice Kagan, paying
tribute to Justice Scalia. This is Lee Habib, host of
Our American Stories, the show where America is the star
and the American people, and we do it all from
the heart of the South Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly

(07:40):
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