Breyer Speech

COMMENCEMENT
“You still can choose to be a pioneer”

entral casting could not have chosen a more appropriately serious speaker than a member of the Supreme Court. So when Justice Stephen Breyer launched into a choppy but spirited rendition of the Macarena, more than a few of the thousands in Stanford Stadium were surprised but wildly enthusiastic. The dance routine had been jokingly suggested by his host, President Gerhard Casper.

Justice Breyer’s hoofing was the gesture of a happy, proud father. His son, Michael, sat among the graduates. “I think I can speak for all the fathers and mothers here in telling you that however nostalgic we are about the children that you once were, we love and admire the adults you have become,” he began and then wryly noted his son’s comments to the Stanford Daily at the prospect of the speech: “He’s been giving me advice for more than twenty years; I suppose another fifteen minutes won’t matter,” Michael had said to the paper.

The following is excerpted from Justice Breyer’s speech. The complete text can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/ news/report/news/june18/commence618.html.

“Yesterday I walked through the Inner Quad and saw the three paving stones that mark my family’s three graduations: my father’s graduation, my own in 1959 and yours, Michael, now. This was an emotional moment.

When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews. Indeed, I can remember, as a child, my mother thinking of going to lunch at a downtown San Francisco hotel with a friend of hers,

Breyer Speech (Plain text) Breyer Speech (Adobe Acrobat format - 15k)

Previous | Next