CHIEF JUSTICE SPEAKS AT RPI
John Roberts, Jr. attended a packed house for a conversation with RPI’s president
TROY, N.Y.>> The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute campus was packed Tuesday afternoon with people there to see the current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court speak.
John Roberts, Jr. took part in a conversation with Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson after he gave a brief presentation about past Chief Justice’s connection with science.
“We welcome today, The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, and to hear his views on the challenges and the opportunities put forth,” said Jackson as she introduced Roberts to the stage.
Roberts was born in Buffalo on Jan. 27, 1955. He married Jane Marie Sullivan in 1996 and they have two children—Josephine and Jack. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. He served as a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1979–1980 and as a law clerk for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1980 Term. He was Special Assistant to the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice from 1981–1982, Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, White House Counsel’s Office from 1982– 1986, and Principal Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice from 1989–1993. From 1986–1989 and 1993–2003, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003. President George W. Bush nominated him as Chief Justice of the United States, and he took his seat September 29, 2005.
“This is an unusual forum for me; I usually speak at law schools, even when I speak at universities without law schools, they don’t share RPI’s distinctive focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” explained Roberts to start off his 20 minute speech to RPI students, staff and alumni. “When I do speak at law schools, I tend to discuss the connections of my predecessors of Chief Justice to the law, but given this distinctive forum I thought I would shift gears a little bit and focus on the prior 16 Chief Justices’ connections to science and as it turns out there are very few.”
After Roberts finished his slide presentation on how each
of the previous 16 Chief Justices connected to science, he then joined Jackson for a sit down question-and-answer conversation. At the end of his presentation Roberts also joked that the most he is connected with science is being at RPI Tuesday afternoon. Jackson first asked Roberts who influenced him in terms of legal thinking.
“I think a majority of justices on the court and throughout history would give the same answer that John Marshall is the model for a Supreme Court Justice,” answered Roberts during the conversation. “He was the first person to take the job seriously and he appreciated the role of the court to bring the United
States together under the Constitution.”
Jackson then went on to ask Roberts about the nomination process for a Supreme Court Justice, given that President Donald Trump’s nomination Neil Gorsuch was recently confirmed.
“First, I want to point out one thing, that throughout this whole process the Supreme Court has been quietly going about its business of deciding the cases put forth according to the Constitution in a completely non-partisan way,” said Roberts. “We have done that over the past 14 months with one vacancy and we‘ ll do that in the future now that we have a full complement.”