Justice Thomas Urges William & Mary Law Graduates to Be “Guardians of the Law”
Inspiring Graduates A former member of the William & Mary Board of Visitors, Justice Thomas is the author of a memoir, “The Poetic Justice,” which chronicles his early life in the segregated neighborhoods of Norfolk, Va., through his appointment as the first Black—and, at age 32, the youngest—justice in the history of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Justice John Charles Thomas spoke about the transformative effects of a legal education and graduates’ roles as future “guardians of the law” at William & Mary Law School’s commencement ceremony at Kaplan Arena on Saturday, May 20.
He was invited to speak by the Class of 2023, which included 230 graduates in the J.D. and LL.M. programs. He previously gave the commencement address for the Law School’s Class of 2012 and has frequently given remarks welcoming new law students during orientation.
Commencement ceremony: view the slideshow or watch the full video. Looking for a quick (1 minute) video recap? Watch it here.
Student recognitions: Learn about those given the week of commencent (read more) and those given at the commencement ceremony (read more).
Faculty recognitions (read more). Staff recognition (read more).
Thomas is a former member of the William & Mary Board of Visitors. He was a Senior Partner in the Richmond office of Hunton & Williams LLP (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) and is a member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. He also is an accomplished poet and the author of a memoir, “The Poetic Justice,” which chronicles his early life in the segregated neighborhoods of Norfolk, Va., through his appointment as the first Black – and, at age 32, the youngest—justice in the history of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
In his address, Thomas reminded graduates of the skills and knowledge they had acquired in their years of study. At the outset of their time at William & Mary, he said, “the law towered above you in its inscrutable majesty and you were consumed with wonder about whether you could make it through.” In time, he said, they each gained considerable mastery “through long hours and hard work and ardent debates and rigorous analysis.” Their years-long journeys should buoy their confidence, he said: “Now you are able to understand, ‘I can walk this path, I can do the thing that I came to learn about.’” Studying law, he noted, also transformed their vision: “You have been changed by this experience. Your very perception of the world is different.”
Law is always evolving, he told the audience of approximately 2,000 well-wishers, and this generation of graduates will face questions about how new technologies will impact their profession. They also will wrestle with age-old questions about justice. Shakespeare cataloged life's hardships in his work almost 500 years ago, Thomas said, and had included among them "law's delay.” “The law will be in your hands,” he told the Class of 2023. “You are the guardians of the law.”
Thomas reminded graduates of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Effecting change takes effort, he said, and requires strong people “to lean up against the arc of history and push it towards justice.” He encouraged graduates to pursue excellence in whatever area of law they practiced and become people whose expert opinion is sought by others.
Thomas ended his address by reciting from memory a poem titled “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). In it, Longfellow exhorted the reader to "be a hero in the strife.” Echoing a line from the poem in his final words, Thomas told the graduates that he and others in the audience were eager to see “the footsteps” that these graduates will leave “on the sands of time.”
About William & Mary Law School
Legal education in a university setting began at William & Mary in 1779. Now in its third century, America's first law school continues its historic mission of educating citizen lawyers who are prepared both to lead and to serve.