HIGH POINTS IN THE DEDICATION YEAR
25 Iowa Advocate (Fall/Winter 1986 – 1987)
Contents
“The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.” .............................................................. 1
Dedication Symposium............................................................................................................ 9
Dedication .............................................................................................................................. 13
Remarks of Harry A. Blackmun ............................................................................................ 15
Naming Ceremony................................................................................................................. 24
Architect’s Reflections .......................................................................................................... 27
Reviewers Laud New Building.............................................................................................. 35
“The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.”
These words from a song popular in my youth describe perfectly the memories I retain
of the series of wonderful events associated with the opening and dedication of our new Law
Building. These memories are like snapshots in a family photo album, they chronicle the
highlights of an exciting period of growth and change. It is my plan in this column to share
with you a few of my special memories of the dedication year. Normally, I choose this topic to
provide an introduction to the special section on the dedication year which follows, but the
truth is I wish to tell these stories because it is fun to recount them.
The move to the new building was itself a memorable undertaking. It is said that the
most difficult moving project known to mankind is to relocate a graveyard. If that is so,
moving a major university law library must run a close second. Our move, which was
supervised with great skill by Arthur Bonfield and Kathie Belgum, took three weeks to
complete and involved a moving crew of over 50 persons on many occasions. One of my
favorite recollections of the "big move" is a scene in which Kathie Belgum, clad in her bright
yellow supervisor's apron, expertly guides a long train of book trucks into just the correct aisle in
the new building. Meanwhile Arthur Bonfield, wearing what he insists on calling "dungarees," is
crawling on the floor in front of the procession inexpertly nailing together pieces of plywood to
provide a runner to protect the beautiful new carpets. Kathie and Arthur may not be the greatest
shop steward or carpenter, but together they formed a world-class moving team. They got the job
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done on time, under budget, and with a minimum of damage to the books and building. Most
amazingly, their computer-generated program for reordering the collection during the course of
the move actually worked to land each book on the right shelf on the right floor.
Another high point in the dedication year occurred shortly after our move to the new
building was completed. In June we received the eagerly awaited report of the ABA-AALS site
visitation team. It would be an understatement to say we were delighted with the report. Not only
did the report strongly confirm our sense of progress on many fronts, it was so pervasively
upbeat in spirit that I am not sure that I could have improved it had I drafted it myself. After
reading the report, UI Vice President Richard Remington was quoted in the local newspaper as
stating: “I’ve read an awful lot of accreditation reports in my time. I’ve never seen one as
positive as this accreditation report – in any field.” The following quotation from the Report’s
conclusion captures the laudatory tone of the report:
"We conclude with the mild reproach that the Iowa College of Law may be hiding its
light under a bushel. It remains primarily a school devoted to producing graduates from
the State of Iowa and the immediately surrounding region. It deserves a much greater
national reputation and a considerably more widespread student constituency. There are
probably a number of the most prestigious law schools in the country, measured by the
usual national rankings, which simply do not match Iowa in excellence of classroom
teaching, intensity of writing and skills training and warm personal relationships with
students. Yet there is not the slightest sign of complacency, and instead an eager search
for improvement constantly goes on. The Dean and the faculty can be justifiably proud of
their achievement."
If I had good sense, I would have ordered this ringing endorsement chiseled into the
limestone entrance of the new building and immediately announced my retirement as dean. That
I did neither bold act says more about the power of inertia than it does about wisdom, I'm afraid.
Another memory about the early days in the new building relates to my traditional
welcoming message to the entering class. As we gathered the new students together for the first
time in Levitt Auditorium, I felt obliged to supplement my usual remarks by urging the students
to show their pride in the Law School's new facility by treating the building with the care and
respect that they would treat their own private home. Even as I was uttering this feckless
exhortation, it occurred to me that these new law students could not possibly share our sense of
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achievement about having realized the dream of having a great law school building in which to
work. These students had never experienced the "delights" of our former home - the hall
congestion, the painful wait to use the restroom, the discouraging search for an empty seat in the
library, or the frustration of finding out that the book you needed urgently was unavailable
because it resided in a warehouse somewhere across town. I also realized with slight sadness that
there would be no honeymoon period with this entering class. Our magnificent new building
would simply become their standard of what law school ought to be and they would just assume
it was their entitlement to have such a grand learning environment at their disposal. Not only
would these newcomers fail to appreciate their good fortunes, very soon they would begin
grousing about inadequate parking, unfair carrel distribution, unequal allocations of space among
student organizations, unpalatable food in the vending machines, and other indignities. Sure
enough, by the end of the first month of classes, all of these complaints and others had emerged,
with the most colorful grievances making the pages of the Daily Iowan.
You may have seen a humorous reference to this next memorable moment in your local
newspaper. As has become our custom, the first major event at the law school each fall is
Supreme Court Day. The centerpiece of Supreme Court Day is a moot argument presented by
two senior law students to the Iowa Supreme Court sitting en bane. This year for the first time in
over a decade, the Supreme Court arguments were held in the Law School and the 300-seat
Levitt Appellate Courtroom was filled to overflowing with students and faculty.
Many in the audience were first year students and they had been carefully in-structed by
acting bailiff, Howard Sokol, J.D. 1967, that when the members of the court entered the room,
protocol dictated that the audience should all rise. When Chief Justice Reynoldson and his
colleagues arrived at the doorway, Howard banged the gavel and the audience tried to oblige.
But as the court ascended the bench and started to take their seats, they were greeted by a strange
moan from the audience followed by a titter of embarrassed laughter. Only a few of us realized
what had happened and it was difficult to keep a straight face. We had forgotten to tell Howard
to warn the audience that the type of bench seat that is provided in the auditorium does not allow
a member of the audience to stand up in place. There is a desk top that catches the seated person
about mid-thigh when they try to rise, so that only a two-thirds crouch is possible. Thus when the
justices entered the room, 300 people simultaneously discovered this impediment and emitted a
surprised groan, then realized that everyone was experiencing the same difficulty and joined in a
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brief and sympathetic laugh before sitting down. It was only a momentary distraction, and the
event went forward with proper dignity and decorum. Members of the court, however, were left
to wonder throughout the argument what accounted for their unusual reception by the audience.
After the event was over an explanation was provided the Justices, and they too enjoyed a good
chuckle over the happenstance.
From the beginning of our planning for the dedication of the new building, it was a
consensus objective to balance the festivities with serious academic activities. My colleague
Shelly Kurtz did a marvelous job in organizing the symposia lectures and getting out the many
invitations that were issued to the special events he and his Dedication Committee had helped
plan. The Symposium celebrating the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution was a timely
opportunity to bring outstanding scholars to campus to discuss important issues and acquaint
themselves with our community. The three half-day sessions held in October and November
were highly successful in all respects except student attendance. We cancelled classes to allow
the students to attend, but all but a handful apparently found more important things to do with
their free time than discuss the day's burning constitutional law issues. So it was that when
renowned legal philosopher Professor Ronald Dworkin of Oxford and NYU came to the school a
few weeks later to deliver a major lecture on the concept of equality, I had fears of introducing
this celebrated scholar to an empty lecture hall. Instead, Levitt Auditorium was filled beyond
official capacity for Dworkin's talk. I cannot explain this counter-intuitive behavior. I know,
however, that it was a tossup between me and Professor Dworkin over who was more surprised
and pleased. I got the distinct impression that he was not accustomed to addressing
standing-room-only crowds either.
Friday evening after the Bicentennial Symposium, the first dinner event of the dedication
weekend was held at the Holiday Inn with about 250 guests in attendance. Thinking that six
hours of serious academic discourse was probably enough for one day, I invited a well-known
native Iowan to deliver some lighthearted after-dinner remarks. Dean and Professor Emeritus
Willard Pedrick was kind enough to accept the invitation and he did not disappoint us. In his
highly entertaining talk, Ped advocated allocation of space in the new building to three bizarre
organizations that exist only in his fertile imagination. It is a tribute to his comedic talent that the
audience had to listen very carefully to detect the bogus character of such entities as the
American Institute of Legal Jurimetrics, on whose behalf Ped and Chicago colleague Walter
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Blum have been authoring tongue-in-cheek tax reform proposals for over 20 years. (One of their
all-time bests is the "negative estate tax.") What else would you expect of a senior citizen who
hustles every academic crowd by passing out cards identifying himself as an "Itinerant Law
Teacher" whose motto is "Have exam, will travel?" Excerpts from Ped's remarks are included in
the special dedication section infra.
The dedication weekend in mid-October was so hectic that it is little more than a blur in
my memory. As the big day neared, my life became unbelievably cluttered with unexpected, but
important, details, such as arranging extra security for Justice Blackmun, employing a band to
provide live ceremonial music, deciding the order of introduction of platform officials (Does a
Governor come before or after a Supreme Court Justice?), and figuring out how and where to
move the ceremony indoors, if the weather did not cooperate.
Because it was such a critical concern, my most vivid memory of the entire dedication
morning is the spectacular Indian summer day it was our good fortune to experience. I do not
believe I have ever seen the Iowa sun shine more brightly or the skies appear more brilliantly
blue than they did on that once-in-a-lifetime October morning when we dedicated our new law
building. (It may just be that mental numbness heightens the sensitivity of the physical senses.)
The beautiful weather was made all the more notable by the uncommonly gloomy conditions that
had prevailed steadily for six weeks prior to the event. As I told the assembled throng that
morning, it was difficult to avoid interpreting the dramatic weather change as a sign that the
Iowa Law School was continuing to do things right in someone's eyes.
In retrospect, I suspect that having my attention diverted to worrying about the weather
and a multitude of other minor problems was actually a blessing. If I had more time to reflect on
the big picture, I may well have been paralyzed from sheer terror. I don't think I fully appreciated
the full weight of the responsibilities I had assumed until after marching in with the platform
party and stepping to the podium to welcome the audience of over 700 persons and begin the
program. It suddenly struck me that all these people were expecting me to conduct this important
ritual with smoothness and self-assurance, even though most of us on the stage had never done
this precise thing before. I remember thinking: Don't panic, it's just like teaching a new subjectthose people out there don't realize that you don't know what you're doing and as long as you can
keep it that way everything will turn out all right.
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It is at the point of this strategic insight that the haze begins to fall and my memory of the
1 1/2 hour ceremony becomes quite indistinct. I have seen the video tape of the proceedings, so I
know I was there in the center of things, recognizing honored guests, introducing speakers and
generally providing continuity to the program, but if electronic evidence did not exist, it would
be hard to convince me that I actually conducted the proceedings. What fleeting memories I do
retain are principally of distractions and minor gaffes. Early in the ceremony a steamline broke at
the nearby power plant and created a loud and annoying wail that all of us had to try to talk
above for the balance of the program. Later I remember thinking what a fraud I was as I claimed
familiarity with a musical number played by the University's brass quintet that I wasn't sure I had
ever heard before. I also recall receiving a note in mid-ceremony from Dan Ellis observing that,
although we had duly expressed our gratitude to platform officials from the Executive and
Judicial branches of state government, we had overlooked the Legislative branch almost
completely. I hastily ad libbed a brief tribute to the brave members of the Iowa General
Assembly, who had voted to undertake this ambitious project during the darkest days of the farm
crisis. Later, when I viewed the videotape I was pleasantly surprised to see that this impromptu
recognition came across as reasonably coherent and not obviously an after-thought.
As the last item on the program I conveyed to the audience architect Gunnar Birkerts'
regrets that illness prevented him from attending the event, and closed the ceremony by reciting a
poem about the new building composed by Birkerts:
"Is it now?
Or
Is it past?
Or
Is it future?
Or
Is it aiming
For timelessness?
If it is so,
Then it is all three:
The silo of the farm
The Stonehenge,
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The (space) city in the Universe."
Instead of "space city," I said "space ship" (too many Star Trek episodes), a mistake that
probably changes the meaning of the poem in some ludicrous manner. Fortunately, only Gunnar
would recognize the error or know its significance, and he wasn't there to correct me.
We are publishing, in the special dedication year section which follows, excerpts from a
number of the speeches that were delivered during the dedication weekend. Among those
published are Justice Blackmun's after-dinner remarks at the Dedication Banquet. Even in cold
print Blackmun's words are quite eloquent, but this is truly one of those cases where you had to
be there to appreciate the full impact of his presence. Justice Blackmun and his wife Dotty were
without question the stars of the dedication weekend, pushing into a supporting role even the
gleaming new building that everyone had come to admire. The Blackmuns attended every
scheduled event, and initiated several unscheduled events of their own during the three days they
visited Iowa City. Whether it was at the dedication ceremony itself, the dinner events, the 3-hour
private meeting with the student body or a 2-hour seminar with the faculty, they were the center
of attraction wherever they went.
For me, Justice Blackmun's most magic moment was his after dinner speech on Saturday
night. We had prevailed upon him to deliver some brief after-dinner remarks. He responded by
giving us a serious speech, which most of the audience found compellingly interesting and at
times, quite moving. Here was one of our own, a lawyer from the Midwest, who had achieved
the highest position in our profession, yet who was so down-to-earth and so humble about his
accomplishments that it was possible to admire him without being awed or intimidated. Even
those who are sharply critical of views championed in decisions he has written could not help but
be impressed by Blackmun's thoughtfulness, gentleness and obvious concern for the human
factor in the application of law's coercive force.
After marveling at the way the Blackmuns threw themselves into the weekend's activities,
all of us involved in planning and dedication events reflected upon how fortunate we were that
their long-awaited visit to Iowa City could be timed to coincide with our dedication ceremony. It
is difficult to imagine that anyone could have exerted a more powerful influence over the entire
weekend than did Harry and Dotty Blackmun.
We had barely caught our breath from the dedication weekend when it was time to mount
another festive occasion. The ceremony for naming the new building and recognizing the major
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contributors to the building fund was a smaller and less publicized event, but it had its own
special qualities that made it every bit as memorable as the dedication weekend. Although the
ceremony was held in the late afternoon of a week day, Levitt Auditorium was packed with over
400 friends and colleagues of Sandy and Susan Boyd.
As I looked out over that sea of familiar faces, it struck me that almost everyone who had
played a significant role in shaping the destiny of the University of Iowa during the last
generation, had been drawn together by this opportunity to recognize the Boyds' incomparable
contributions to the Iowa City community. I told the assembled group that this event was nothing
more or less than a family reunion of the University of Iowa family; and it was obvious to me
that everyone in the room felt the same way. I seriously doubt if we will ever hold another event
in the Levitt Auditorium in which so much warmth and genuine affection radiated among all of
the participants.
There were only three short speeches, but each was a gem. Architect Gunnar Birkerts,
who was unable to attend the dedication because of illness, colorfully described his relationship
to a new building as comparable to parent and child. By the time Gunnar finished drawing out
his metaphor, I doubt if anyone in the room doubted that his wallet was bursting with pictures of
the Boyd Law Building, his newest offspring. President Freedman then took the podium and did
his usual splendid job in recounting the accomplishments of Boyd's professional career,
including the highlights of his 12 years as president.
Then it was Sandy's turn. His remarks were perfectly suited to the occasion. He stressed
the importance of conducting legal training within the context of a university that is strong in
liberal arts and the humanities. He reflected on his years at Iowa and recited the contributions of
many of the law school's legendary figures. His speech was both informative and entertaining;
his tone ranged from serious to witty. The consensus of those in attendance was that Sandy had
never delivered a better talk. Excerpts from his remarks are included in the special section that
follows.
The speeches were excellent, the food and drink were fine, but it was the heightened
sense of camaraderie that caused people to stay on and enjoy each other’s' company long after
the scheduled ending time for the event. Boyd's name will be linked with the Law Building for a
period of time so long it is hard for the mind to grasp it. What is easy to understand, however, is
that the complex of emotions - nostalgia, sadness, joy - that surfaced during the naming
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ceremony will be relished by our memories as long as we live. The opportunities to participate in
such landmark events are rare and most of us felt privileged just to have been there and played a
part in something so memorable.
There are numerous other high points of the dedication year that could be added to this
brief collection, but one has to stop somewhere. I am sure everyone who participated in the many
activities has similar favorite stories. It was a glorious period during which the new building held
up beautifully and the law school community acquitted itself nobly in staging a series of events,
which were dignified yet fun for all who participated. Hopefully, the special section which
follows will allow the alumni and friends of the school, who were unable to travel to Iowa City,
to at least enjoy reading some of the fine presentations with which we were favored throughout
this memorable period.
Dedication Symposium
The Dedication Weekend events were opened by a day-long symposium on Friday,
October 17, 1986 celebrating the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. Professor
Robert Clinton presided during the symposium and gave the opening remarks. Clinton compared
the Constitution as the beginning of the nation to the dedication as the beginning of a new era in
Iowa Law School.
The symposium format called for the presentation of major papers by two well-known
law scholars, Professor Frank Michelman of Harvard Law School and Professor William Van
Alstyne of Duke Law School. Each presentation was followed by comments on the paper by
scholars in varying fields. Professor Michelman gave the morning paper entitled “The
Republican Tratition v. Constitutional Property Rights.” Following Michelman’s address
Professor Donald McCloskey, University of Iowa Department of Economics, Professor Sylvia
Law, New York University Law School and Professor Gerald Dworkin, University of Illinois at
Chicago delivered commentaries on the paper.
Professor Van Alstyne, Duke Law School, presented the afternoon paper entitled
“Judicial Review and the Supreme Court.” The commentators for Mr. Van Alstyne’s paper
included Professor Lane Davis, University of Iowa Department of Political Science, Professor
Martha Field, Harvard Law School and Professor Henry Monaghan, Colombia Law School.
Following the paper presentations and commentaries, the panel entertained questions
from the audience. The day’s proceedings were recorded for later broadcast on WSUI.
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On November 18, 1986 the second session of the Symposium was convened at 10 A.M.
in Levitt Auditorium. The featured paper was presented by Dean Jesse Choper of the School of
Law, University of California (Berkeley). Dean Choper’s topic was “Remedial Racial
Classification in the U.S. Supreme Court.” His paper was commented on by Professor Rex Lee
of Brigham Young Law School, former Solicitor General of the U.S. and Dean Paul Brest of the
Stanford Law School. Although the speakers advocated somewhat different approaches to
resolving issues underlying racial disparities in American society, they generally agreed that
neither the proponents nor opponents of affirmative action plans were likely to find complete
vindication of their positions in upcoming decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. They predicted
that the Court would continue its pattern of careful case by case development of this
controversial doctrine.
All papers and commentaries will be published in an upcoming issue of the Iowa Law
Review. Funding for the symposium was provided by the Iowa Law School Foundation, the
Iowa Humanities Board and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Observations of an Itinerant Law Teacher
Dean Hines was plainly worried as to whether I was up to this big assignment.
How often do you dedicate a new building? In Iowa apparently not more than twice a
year. Already I hear rumblings of a plan to rededicate the building next month. The
Dean's instruction was very precise. He said "Now do not try to replay your usual claptrap-rag-tag and bobtail cornpone material. No indeed. You are going to have an audience
of in-tellectuals and scholars. They deserve something really serious and scholarly, with
footnotes, - if I was up to it." Specifically, he instructed me, and this is almost a direct
quote, "speak of Iowa traditions, the new building, the ABA inspection, the Constitutional
Bicentennial, etc." I have chosen the last mentioned topic, ETC.
Well maybe a word about the Constitution and the Bicentennial. First of all, you
certainly waited a long time, 200 years, to celebrate. More seriously, I think that it ought to be
made clear that the res ipsa loquitur doctrine, beloved to us tort teachers, has no place in
constitutional law. Notwithstanding Attorney General Meese, a justice has to think in
interpreting the constitution.
I suppose I ought to explain how I happen to be your dinner speaker tonight. It has to do
with the program the ABA Section on Legal Education and the AALS have for inspecting law
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schools to see whether they are up to snuff. Why inspect a quality school like Harvard or Yale,
not to mention Michigan and Iowa? Well, suppose a retired Judge starts the Blackstone Law
School. He teaches all the courses, and his library consists of an annotated set of the State
statutes. You obviously have to inspect him, and politically you can't inspect him without
inspecting everybody. Furthermore, even the best can be better. I have had only two
experiences in chairing visitation committees on this inspection business. The first was at the
University of Michigan, where we took seriously our instructions from the AALS that it was
perfectly appropriate to tell the school that it could do better. We said that Michigan with its
immense resources ought to be more of a leader in development of legal education. Thereafter,
one of my former students on the Michigan faculty, a close personal friend, did not speak to me
for two years. One day we were in the same taxicab and he said, "Well if you won't say
anything about the report, I'll never mention it again." So we were friends again. I should report
that, perhaps as a result of our bluntness with Michigan, the AALS has pulled back a little bit
from this attempt to prod strong schools into becoming even better.
The next assignment after that psychic victory was at Iowa. Here we came out with a
very good committee and met with your then President, Sandy Boyd. We started like the IRS:
We said "we're here to help, what can we do that will be useful?" There was a bit of a pause and
he said, "Well, we're aware that the law building is not really the greatest in the country, so if
you want to be critical, you can say mean things about the building." I thought that was
absolutely marvelous. So let me read you a few of the phrases from our 1977 Report.
"The major problem at the College of Law has to do with its incredibly inadequate and
depressing physical facility. It is a disgrace to the State of Iowa to continue its program in legal
education in such an execrable facility. In short, the law school is in crisis with respect to the
horrible inadequacy of the physical plant." I understand that after he saw the draft report, Sand
y said, "Wow, I didn't even know some of those words were in Ped's vocabulary."
After that, many things happened. How did it happen, how did it come about? One can
only speculate. There was once a Michigan legislator who said "there comes a time when you
must put principle aside and do the right thing." Perhaps that is what you did. But you have got
your building now. When I saw it under construction I exclaimed, "Well, you are going to have
the Taj Mahal of law buildings of the United States." Like the Taj, it's truly a cathedral of the
law. I won't take sole credit, just most of it. I thought it would only be appropriate if they
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named the building after me. The local pressures were intense. However, they came up with a
splendid compromise. My first name is Willard. And the former President's last name is Boyd.
So it's recognition for two separate individuals.
In 1977, in our special report, we said something I would like to share with you. We
observed that students embarking on the program of legal study leading to entry into the legal
profession have their first significant encounter with the law in a physical setting that can, if
properly planned, communicate through architectural design, something of the spirit of the law
and the demands that the profession makes upon students and practitioners. Law students’
perception of the significance and the importance of the law in society will, to some extent at
least be shaped unconsciously by the extent which those responsible for legal education see fit to
provide a proper place in which such studies are to be conducted. If the place is meanly
designed, inadequately furnished, crowded, noisy and generally depressing the message from
society, of course, is that legal institutions do not deserve or merit the kind of accommodations
provided for professions like medicine, dentistry, engineering and the like.
Now, Iowa has a splendid new building which is bound to be the envy of every law
school in the United States. The only negative comment that I have heard so far was from
Hayden Fry who said the building is too small for an indoor football stadium.
Listen to what the 1986 inspection committee said. I now quote, without authority from
that report which I have seen, chaired by former Dean St. Antoine of the University of
Michigan. The reports says, "We are delighted to say that this one deficiency, an inadequate
physical plant, has been remedied to a faretheewell. Over the summer of 1986 the law school
moved into a gleaming new $24 million building designed by nationally famed architect
Gunnar Birkerts. Birkerts prides himself on planning aesthetic and functional elements, and he
surpassed himself in the striking circular shape of the new law building. Birkerts explains the
circle is the purest of all geometric forms. It implies the presence of order, a prerequisite to
justice, in spirit, the building like the law wants to relate to and interact with the society around
it."
To which I add, by George, you've done it. You have built a law building to stir the
hearts, and to lift the spirits of all who come here, students, faculty, practicing lawyers, judges,
and lay persons as well. The 1986 inspection report should lift your spirits. Iowa should take
pride in having created an aesthetic working symbol of our faith in the processes of law. The
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skills of analysis, of persuasion, negotiation, counseling, legislating, adjudicating,
compromising- they are our best and only hope for a better society, a better world, a more just,
decent society. Our great mission is human relations; ultimately the key to a peaceful planet, a
livable planet. You Iowans have done a great and noble thing in building this cathedral to the
law. Take pride. You have the best, the best in the entire United States, a challenge to all the rest
of us.
Dedication
A perfect Indian summer day complete with blue skies and blazing fall colors provided
the setting for the dedication of the new law building on October 18. The ceremony was held on
the front lawn of the law school before an audience of 700.
Dean N. William Hines, presiding over the ceremony, greeted all and suggested that the
spectacular sunny day in the midst of an unusually dreary fall was symbolic of the Iowa Law
School's tradi- tion of achieving notable results in the face of adversity. The University's special
guest for the Dedication weekend, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, spoke of the
long tradition of this law school and noted that it is the oldest law school west of the Mississippi
in continuous operation. "Bricks and mortar do not make make lawyers or law teachers or
leaders in the legal profession,” he said. "But a good place to study enables a student to
concentrate on what is essential. And a good place to work and to study enables the faculty to
expand and to validate their teaching. And a good place to work and to study enables the school
itself to stress the clinical aspects of the profession as well as its theoretical underpinnings. And
a good place to work and to study attracts good faculty and good students and makes a fine law
school even better."
Chief Justice W. Ward Reynoldson of the Iowa Supreme Court noted that the new
library is the tenth largest law college library in the nation. This will be of particular importance
for not only the students and faculty, but also members of the practicing bar. "Those books
collect the wisdom and experience and the mistakes and failures of thousands of courts and
legal scholars. We draw on that wisdom and learn from those mistakes in protecting and
shaping the course of the law," Justice Reynoldson observed. He concluded that "this
outstanding facility can only enhance this Iowa school's ability to develop lawyers capable of
tackling future challenging and complex legal problems."
Governor Branstad, who first recommended the building of the facility and later signed
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the bonding resolution that funded it, proclaimed that this new building is "part of the ongoing
commitment that we have in the great state of Iowa to justice for all under rule of law.”
Susan Prager, President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), praised
the University of Iowa law faculty for its distinguished and influential leadership in the AALS.
She noted that only four law schools-Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Pennsylvania- have had
more AALS presidents than Iowa. "This faculty has a great national reputation in part because
it is known for the emphasis that it places on fine and caring teaching. This faculty proves that
strong teaching and a research vision appropriate for a great university law school need not be
mutually exclusive."
William Falsgraf, immediate past president of the American Bar Association,
complimented the University of Iowa faculty and graduates for their dedication to public
service. "Certainly your graduates have exemplified the very best in the practice of law and the
adherence to the high ethical standards of lawyers.”
Russell Buchanan, President of the Iowa State Bar Association, commented on the
importance of law schools to the practicing Bar, and encouraged those in law school settings to
do "an even better job of instilling in students the very highest ideals of professionalism." He
concluded with the hope that our "success in this endeavor would be as impressive as the
building in which it will be done."
John McDonald, president of the State Board of Regents, then presented the building to
President of the University, James Freedman. "At last the University of Iowa has the physical
plant and the equipment it needs well into the next century to nurture the continuing
development of one of the finest public law colleges in the United States and for the benefit of
all Iowans . . ."
In accepting the building, Freedman said, "This university has a special obligation, as it
continues a distinguished tradition in legal education, to recommit itself to the teaching of law
as an essential branch of humane learning." He further noted, "The dedication of this building
reminds us once again that lawyers must continue to play that role, both as competently trained
professionals, and as broadly educated citizens. I hope that this college of law will always
impart to its students both legal technique and intellectual vision, and that it will continue to
train lawyers who possess the sense of craftsmanship, scholarship, citizenship, and service to
our society that its graduates have so notably exemplified for more than a century.
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The university brass quintet provided the music for the event. Other honored guests of
the University for this ceremony were James P. White, Consultant to the ABA Committee on
Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, Marilyn Yarborough, President of the Law School
Admission Counsel, Tom Miller, Attorney General for the State of Iowa, Edgar Hansell,
President of the Board of Directors of Iowa Law School Foundation, and Willard "Sandy"
Boyd, past president of the University of Iowa. In closing the ceremony, Dean Hines quoted a
passage written by the architect Gunnar Birkerts who designed the new building, "The circle is
the purest geometric form. It cannot be compromised. It is a fitting symbol for the profession of
law, since it expresses perfection, clarity and geometric purity."
Following the ceremony, an open house was held for the entire building. Students led
tours of the new facility throughout the day. A public reception was held in the front foyer in the
late afternoon.
Remarks of Harry A. Blackmun
The dedication of a new University building is a time for celebration. It is also a time for
memories. I am told that the Law School of the University of Iowa has had two building
dedications in this century, the first in 1910, and the second in 1961 when Chief Justice Warren
was present in Iowa City. Undoubtedly, many of you who are here tonight were present then.
After all, that is only 25 years ago.
This seems, indeed, to be a season for celebrations. Harvard, the oldest college in the
United States, has been celebrating the 350th Anniversary of its founding in 1636. Your smaller
sister institution, Luther College in Decorah, this year celebrates its 125th Anniversary. And
next September 17 - just 11 months from now - is the Bicentennial of our Nation's Constitution.
Yours is a great and important State. Admitted to the Union as the 29th State in 1846,
Iowa founded its University the very next year. And the Law School had its beginning within
two decades there - after, just at the close of the Civil War. It was the first law school established
west of the Mississippi, the first to graduate a woman (in 1878), and the first to graduate a Negro
(in 1873). The State has produced two Justices of the Supreme Court, Samuel Freeman Miller of
Keokuk, the second and surely the best of President Lincoln's appointments, who came to the
Court in 1862, and served for 28 years until 1890, and Wiley Blount Rutledge, the eighth to be
appointed by Franklin Roosevelt and who served from 1943 to 1949. It has produced judges of
the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Walter I.Smith, 1911-1922; former
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Senator William S. Keynon, 1922- 1933; Seth Thomas of Fort Dodge, 1935- 1954; Martin D.
Van Oosterhout of Orange City, 1954-1971; Roy L. Stephen- son of Des Moines, 1971-1982,
and George C. Fagg of Marshalltown, 1982 to the present. And at the federal trial level-the ones
that I personally remember or know-are Charles A. Dewey, Henry N. Graven, Edwin R. Hicklin,
Edward J. McManus, William C. Hanson, Roy L. Stephenson, William C. Stuart, Donald E
O'Brien, David R. Hansen, and Harold D. Vietor.
If one looks apart from the field of law, he finds among Iowa residents Marquis Childs,
Buffalo Bill Cody, Ding Darling, Herbert Hoover, Harry Hopkins, John L. Lewis, Hanford
MacNider, Frederick L. Maytag, Charles Ringling, Billy Sunday, James A. Van Allen, Henry C.
Wallace, Henry A. Wallace, Ray Lyman Wilbur, Meredith Willson, and Grant Wood . Iowa,
indeed, has nurtured persons of stature and prominence.
It is good to look back, to reevaluate our foundations, and once again to hold them in
lasting and reverential respect and gratitude. Yet we dare not linger at this too long, for the future
lies immediately before us and must be heeded. Memories and glances at the past, however,
fortify us for that future, and can strengthen our resolves. May it be so at this time of gathering in
Iowa City in 1986, just 14 years short of the beginning of what is bound to be an exciting 21st
Century.
What may one say on an occasion such as this? What should one say? It has all been said
before, sometimes well and sometimes poorly. I could, of course, as some have suggested, speak
about the Court-your Supreme Court-not the President's, not the Chief Justice's, but your Court.
It is obviously in transition. The old Chief Justice has stepped down, and a new one has qualified
and is in the center chair. A new Associate Justice has been appointed and taken his seat. With
the changes, the Court's average age has dropped about three years. The number of children of
sitting Justices, however, has greatly increased, for Justice Scalia has nine and Chief Justice
Burger has only two. Some of the Justices have different seats on the Bench. Justice O'Connor
now is at the far left (looking at the Bench) and Justice Stevens has come over from that seat to
the right side. Next to him, in the junior place, is the new Justice.
Two weeks of oral argument have taken place. The Court still listens and questions. The
long end-of-the-summer conference is behind us; it was completed expeditiously in less than two
days. Conferences of the past two weeks also have been held and have gone off smoothly.
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Tentative votes have been cast and opinions have been assigned for writing. What does this
promise by way of change?
Will the Court be more conservative, as some anticipate? Will William H. Rehnquist, Jr.,
as Chief Justice, be inclined to write fewer opinions in solitary dissent? Will his position as Chief
tend to move him toward the center of the Court so as to command five votes? What will be the
effect of his presence as head of the Federal Judiciary? How will he run the Judicial Conference
of the United States? How will he be received by the Congress when recommendations
concerning legislation bearing on the judiciary are made?
One might also ask the inevitable next questions .When will there be another vacancy,
particularly in light of the fact that four sitting Justices are 77 or older? What effect will another
appointment by President Reagan have upon the outcome of cases that by their very nature are
close and controversial? Is Roe v. Wade due for overruling? Is Garcia v. San Antonio
Metropolitan Rapid Transit Co. destined for the same fate? Will this Court tend to disfavor
federal power and enlarge state power? Will it be a Court of judicial restraint? Will it be the
despair of the civil rights proponents?
The questions are many and I shall not speculate about them, although I know that any
media representative who is here wishes that I would. A transition of this kind has taken place in
the Court many times in the past. One can only wait to see what will happen. The Court will be
different in certain ways, as it always is whenever a single face changes.
One thing I wish to make dear. Despite your personal leanings- whatever they are,
Democrat or Republi- can, liberal or conservative, believer in so- called judicial activism or
proponent of so-called judicial restraint-let us not mope about what comes to pass. Justice Story's
example, I think, is pertinent. He was a great Justice of the Court a century and a half ago. Many
believe that he was greater than Chief Justice John Marshall, and it even has been intimated that
he did much of the work attributed to Marshall. But he survived the Chief's death in 1835 and
carried on for a while under Chief Justice Taney. He let his feelings be known, and he set them
forth even in the formal United States Reports. One need only look at his solitary dissents in
Briscoe v. Bank. 11 Pet. 257, 350 (1837), and in City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 153
(1837), to sense his love of the past under the Great Chief and his distress with the then present.
Charles Warren, in his book, "The Supreme Court in United States History," volume 2, pages
139-140 (Rev. ed. 1937), noted the situation. He quoted Story's letters to Ezekiel Bacon where he
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bewailed the fact that "New men and new opinions have succeeded. The doctrines of the
Constitution . . . which in former times received the support of the whole Court, no longer
maintain their ascendancy . . . I am the last of the old race of Judges. I stand their solitary
representative with a pained heart and a subdued confidence." Informative, is it not? Story, of
course, retired from the Court, discouraged and old before his time. But he went on to Harvard
Law School to establish a great name in a new endeavor there.
Whatever happens-and it will come to pass-let us not despair, on the one hand, or be
unduly jubilant, on the other. Time has a way of evening things out and, above all, the Republic
will survive. I know it will. It always has.
What, really, are we here for? Why have you gathered in Iowa City tonight?
You are here in part, of course, because you wish to celebrate, and to anticipate the future
with this fine new building as the home of a great law school. You are proud to be sons and
daughters of Iowa and many of you are, and are proud to be, graduates of the Law School. You
are pleased to be with others who share the same pride and the same affiliation.
But may I presume to say that principally among the forces that have brought this
assembly together is the inescapable fact that here are your professional roots. Here, for you, was
the place of great teachers, great deans, and exciting encouragement for the law. You vividly
recall the names and the faces of those who inspired you to study and to learn. Here you found
what you felt was knowledge; the way, as we used to say, to “think legally”; the challenge from
the faculty and from your fellow students, all the things that stood by you in the professional and
adversarial experiences that followed. It was a place of strength, as roots must be before they
may be said to be roots.
Last March, Mrs. Blackmun and I were fortunate to have been in Jerusalem for a seminar
at The Hebrew University, a seminar on The Role of the Courts in Society. Among the moving
events for me was a visit to the Western Wall where, topped with a yarmulke and accompanied
by a friend, I placed in the Wall a note written in Hebrew by one of my then law clerks who had
lost her mother just a few months before. For me, it was an emotional moment, as we stood
before that Wall, offered a short prayer, and saw others to the right and to the left of us, singly, in
pairs, and in groups from all over the world doing much the same thing or participating in the
inherent learning and inspiration of the place. I realized then how massively meaningful it was
for those people and, in a sense, I understood why they returned, for there they gathered history
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in their arms, generation upon generation, and they came forth strengthened and renewed. There
were the roots.
What remains for all of us and for you, as lawyers and as those interested in the Law
School, to do in this day? With some diffidence-but not too much-I offer the following as goals.
With a distinct purpose, I have chosen to express much of what I say here in the phraseology of
others and not in word s of my own. But I am in agreement with these quotations, and they
represent my own conclusions. I presume to use these sources because they say it well and
because they show the accepted and established attitude of the Court itself over a long period of
time.
1. On the headstone of John Jay's grave in Rye, New York, which I had the good fortune to
visit some time ago, is the following inscription:
"Eminent among those who asserted the liberty and established the independence
of his country which he long served in the most important offices, legislative,
executive, judicial and diplomatic, and distinguished in them all by his ability,
firmness, patriotism and integrity."
What an epitaph-that the first Chief Justice of the United States excelled in every
endeavor he undertook on behalf of his country. The element and goal of service.
2. Mr. Justice Cardozo in his 1924 monograph on "The Growth of the Law, said:
"The passing years have not brought to me the gift of wisdom, but they have at
least opened my eyes to the perception that distinctions which in those early days
seemed sharp and obvious are in truth shadowy and blurred, the walls of the
compartments in nowise water- tight or rigid." (P. 36.)
There are limits to the pure logic of the law. The element and goal of breadth of attitude.
3. Flanking the great stairs on the west side of the Supreme Court building in Washington
are two pedestals. On them are figures carved by the well-known sculptor, James Earle
Fraser. Another Fraser statue is in Rochester, Minnesota. It portrays the Doctors Mayo in
their surgical gowns. Beneath those figures are the words: "They loved the truth and
sought to know it."
Turning from medicine to the law, what is truth? And may we in our respective
endeavors make the law ring true and not false? Must we not say that the law, in order to
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be true, at least must "establish Justice," within the meaning of the ringing words of the
Preamble to the Constitution of the United States? The element and goal of true justice.
4. In 1943, In Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638, the Court, speaking
through Justice Jackson, said this:
"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the
vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and
officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's
right to life, liberty, and proper- ty, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship
and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote. They
depend on the outcome of no elections."
The element and goal of protecting guaranteed fundamental rights, and making them free
from tampering.
5. Khalil Gibrand reminds us: "The pillars of the temple stand apart." This is a Nation
forged out of diverse peoples and diverse cultures. There has been strength in our
diversity. Do we tend to forget this? Yet, there stands the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868
with its mandate that "the equal protection of the laws" shall not be denied "to any
person." The element and goal of true equal protection.
6. Professor /Doctor Alan A. Stone of the Harvard Law School concluded his 1984 book
entitled "Law, Psychiatry, and Morality" with these words:
". . . We will make mistakes if we go forward, but doing nothing can be the worst
mistake. What is required of us is moral ambition. Until our composite sketch
becomes a true portrait of humanity we must live with our uncertainty; we will
grope, we will struggle, and our compassion may be our only guide and comfort.”
Doctor Stone, of course, was speaking of psychiatrists and not of lawyers or of
courts engaged in the most adversarial of all true professional work. Yet, we in
law constantly probe for what is right. And in the probing, may we not again
discover that one of the factors in justice is compassion. Perhaps it, too, on
occasion, “may be our only guide and comfort.”
The element and goal of compassion.
7. In 1921, at Yale Law School, a jurist gave a series of lectures. He was then the
distinguished Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. He later
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went on to become a distinguished Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
albeit, sadly, for only a few years. In the first of those lectures, he said: "The great
generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to
age. The method of free decision sees through the transitory particulars and reaches what
is permanent behind them. Interpretation, thus enlarged, becomes more than the
ascertainment of the meaning and intent of lawmakers whose collective will has been
declared."
He went on:
"My duty as judge may be to objectify in law, not my own aspirations and
convictions and philosophies, but the aspirations and convictions and philosophies
of the men and women of my time. Hardly shall I do this well if my own
sympathies and beliefs and passionate devotions are with a time that is past."
And then:
"The work of a judge is in one sense enduring and in another sense ephemeral.
What is good in it endures. What is erroneous is pretty soon to perish. The good
remains the foundation on which new structures will be built. The bad will be
rejected and cast off in the laboratory of the years.
I sometimes think that we worry ourselves overmuch about the enduring
consequences of our errors. They may work a little confusion for a time. . . . The
future takes care of such things. In the endless process of testing and retesting,
there is a constant rejection of the dross, and a constant retention of whatever is
pure and sound and fine."
That was Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, speaking 65 years ago. The element and goal of
legal purity.
Thus, as this Law School-and indeed your Supreme Court of the United States-continue
their work, let us hope that we shall receive from each of them service, breadth of attitude, true
justice, devotion to the guaranteed fundamental rights, unadulterated equal protection,
compassion, and legal purity.
But there is one more-the element and goal of timeliness and action now. We all
remember the words attributed to William Penn and written a century before the Founding
Fathers gathered in Philadelphia in 1787:
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"I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or
any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it,
as I shall not pass this way again."
These, I think, are some of the opportunities that this Law School must refer to the
receptive law student. Whether the student grasps those opportunities is, I suppose, another
matter.
It seems to me that much of it comes down to this. Each law student, while he or she is
here at Iowa, or not too long after leaving, will be confronted with a basic question: What do you
want to make of your life? Do you just want to make a lot of money and be economically
comfortable in the profession? Some will pursue that path. Do you want to strive for power for
power's sake? Some will. Or, in addition to earning your livelihood and making your own way,
do you want to contribute as best you can, and in your own way, to the attainment of justice and
a better life for others?
President Kennedy, after his election in 1960, but before his inauguration the following
January, in a speech to the legislature of Massachusetts, stated that whether one fulfills his given
responsibilities and whether he succeeds or fails in whatever office he holds, will be measured by
the answers to four questions. He was speaking generally of political activity. I paraphrase and
generalize those questions in this way:
Are we truly persons of fortitude with, as Kennedy said, "the courage to stand up to one's
enemies and the courage to stand up when necessary to [one's] own associates?"
Are we persons of good judgment, judgment of the future as well as of the past,
recognizing our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, and with enough candor to admit
our shortcomings?
Are we persons of integrity who, and I quote Kennedy, "never [run] out on either the
principles in which [we] believed or the people who believed in them?"
Are we persons of dedication and devoted solely to serving the public good?
Those questions embrace the opportunities that the Law School of the University of Iowa
affords the receptive student. I suspect that positive answers to those questions or questions like
them have determined the greatness of the Law School in the past century, as revealed by the
accomplishments of its graduates. Perhaps the answers to those questions or questions like them
22
will determine whether Iowa Law School, will be regarded as great from 1986 on. That, I
suspect, is up to you and to all of us. The issue, always, is what are we willing to do about it?
Blackmun Visit
In the midst of the flurry of Dedication events, the students of the law school were given
a unique opportunity in which the public and even faculty were not allowed to join- a Sunday
morning chat with Justice and Dottie Blackmun. The Blackmuns graciously agreed to join the
student body for coffee and doughnuts (although neither seemed to have an opportunity to eat
any) and answer questions posed by the students. Levitt Auditorium was filled to capacity for the
event leading Justice Blackmun to wonder whether Iowa students didn't have anything better to
do on such a glorious Sunday, like sleep in or go jogging.
The couple answered questions from all spheres of interest. Regarding the Washington
social scene, Justice Blackmun stated that they rarely went out because his job was so
demanding. He said that due to the volume of work, it is a seven-day-a-week job, requiring him
to bring work along for a weekend trip such as their trip to Iowa.
Regarding how he likes his position, Justice Blackmun observed that it is "nice to be at
the end of the decision- making." Opinion writing is what he likes to do best, because in this
process is "the scholarship of the law." On the topic of controversy that surrounds the judicial
process, Justice Blackmun quoted Holmes who thought that "the place of a lawyer is in the fray.”
When asked what recent decision the court had made that was the worst in his opinion,
Justice Blackmun responded that the dubious honor would have to go to the Hardwick case of
last year where the Georgia sodomy law was upheld as constitutional. He described the decision
as a "complete disaster" and noted that dissenters' arguments expressed a view more in line with
the public based on the editorials and reaction of the American people nationwide. In Justice
Blackmun's opinion, the majority opinion did "incalculable harm." In conclusion on the topic, the
Justice stated "I don't want big government in the bedrooms of this country."
In looking to the new court under Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Blackmun predicted a
relaxed tribunal with a flexible, pleasant atmosphere and in general a happy place to work.
Regarding the effect of future appointments to the Court, Justice Blackmun believes that
the next appointment will be an important one because "the vision of Roe v. Wade being
overruled is vivid." The Justice still strongly believes the decision is correct and represents "a
milestone on the path to full emancipation of women."
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Naming Ceremony
Levitt Auditorium was filled to capacity on November 20, 1986, for the ceremony at
which the new building was formally named in honor of Willard L. "Sandy" Boyd. More than
400 alumni, donors, faculty, and friends of the law school gathered to pay tribute to Boyd for his
many contributions both to the university in general and the law school in particular. The naming
of the Boyd Law Building carries forward a University tradition. Every University of Iowa
president since 1887 has had a campus building named in his honor. Boyd was the fifteenth
president of the University of Iowa, succeeding Howard R. Bowen in 1969, and serving until
1981.
President Emeritus Boyd holds four earned degrees: A bachelor of science in law (1949
B.S.L.), and a bachelor of law (1951 LL.B.), both from the University of Minnesota, and a
master of law (1952 LL.M.) and a doctor of juridicial science (1962 S.J.D.), both from the
University of Michigan. He has also received numerous honorary degrees. After completing law
school, Boyd worked as an associate for two years in the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey, Owen,
Marquart & West. Boyd joined the U.I. law faculty in 1954, and subsequently served as vice
president for academic affairs and dean of the faculties for five years before his appointment as
president.
Boyd is currently president of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The
former UI president has chaired the Section on Legal Education of the American Bar Association
and is nationally recognized as a leader in higher education, the arts, legal education and human
rights.
Dean Hines welcomed the overflow crowd to the naming ceremony, which he
characterized as "a reunion of the University of Iowa family." Hines then introduced Gunnar
Birkerts, the building architect who favored the audience with some reflections on the process by
which the new building was transformed from a creative concept to a limestone and glass reality.
President Freedman then recognized many accomplishments and formally bestowed
former President Boyd's name on the new building. Freedman read the inscription on the circular
plaque presented on the limestone face of the building's main entryway. "This building is
dedicated to Willard L. Boyd, lawyer and educator, whose service as fifteenth president of the
University of Iowa from 1969 to 1981 was distinguished by a deep commitment to academic
excellence, a profound concern for the individual, and an abiding respect for the rule of law."
24
Boyd responded to the recognition with an eloquent and moving speech in which he
recounted the highlights of his years at Iowa and the history of the new building. He closed his
remarks with the promise that he and Susan would return “home” to Iowa as soon as possible.
The ceremony was followed by a reception and dinner in the new law building. Friends
of the Boyds renewed acquaintances and reminisced long into the evening hours.
During the ceremony, President Freedman joined Dean Hines in recognizing the
following commemorative donors whose generous gifts have furnished many of the rooms in the
building:
-The James R. "Ray" Austin Law Review Suite, provided by a memorial gift from
Austin's family and wife, Martha H. Austin of Des Moines. A UI alumnus (1941 M.A., 1943
J.D.), Austin practiced law in Des Moines from 1946 until his death in 1981.
-The Ray and Maxine Bailey Faculty Library Lounge, provided by Ray V. Bailey (1935
B.A., 1937 J.D.) and Maxine S. Bailey (1937 B.A.) of Milford. A patent attorney, Ray Bailey is
a former member of the State Board of Regents and the Iowa Legislature.
-The Clyde B. and Judge Shannon B. Charlton Courtroom, provided by Grace O.
Charlton, Des Moines, in memory of her husband, Clyde B. Charlton (1921 B.A., 1923 J.D.),
and his brother, Judge Shannon B. Charlton (1916 B.A.). Clyde Charlton practiced law in Des
Moines until his death in 1951. Shannon Charlton, who practiced law in Manchester, before
being named district court judge in the First Judicial District of Iowa, died in 1969.
-The Miggie Mackenzie and William N. Cramblit Courtroom, provided by a memorial
gift from Lue D. Cramblit (1953 J.D.) and his family of Pasadena. Cramblit's parents, Miggie
and William Cramblit Sr., were longtime residents of Ottumwa. Their son, Lue Cramblit, is an
investment counselor in Los Angeles.
-The F. Arnold Daum Visiting Practitioners Office, provided by his wife, Lucile Daum of
New York City. Arnold Daum (1934 J.D.), a former trustee on the Iowa Law School Foundation
Board, was a senior partner in a New York City law firm until his death in 1983.
-The Orville and Paula Grahame Courtyard, provided by Orville F. (1925 B.A., 1929
J.D.) and Paula P. (1926 B.A.) Grahame of Worcester, Massachusetts. An executive of the Paul
Revere Life Insurance Co. and its affiliated companies between 1939 and 1980, Orville Grahame
served on the boards of directors of the Iowa Law School Foundation and the UI Foundation.
Paula Grahame is a writer and artist.
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-The Judge Benjamin in G. Howrey Judge's Chambers, provided by Edward F. "Jack"
Howrey (1925 B.A.) in memory of his brother, Benjamin G. Howrey (1924 J.D.). Benjamin
Howrey served as a Municipal Court judge in Waterloo for 38 years. Edward Howrey is a
founding partner of a Washington, D.C. law firm.
-The Mason Ladd Conference Room, provided by the Board of Directors of the Iowa
Law School Foundation at their April 1986 meeting. Mason Ladd (1923 J.D.) was dean of the UI
College of Law from 1939 to 1966.
-The John P. Lagomarcino International Law Society Office, provided by Frederick E.
and Stephanie Lagomarcino Bishop (1967 B.A.) of Glencoe, Illinois. John P. Lagomarcino (1928
B.A., 1930 J.D.) of Burlington who died in 1971, was president of Lagomarcino Grupe Company
of Iowa, a wholesale food distributor.
-The Lane & Waterman Moot Court Board Room, provided by the partners of Lane &
Waterman, a Davenport law firm. Founded in 1854, the firm has been known by its current name
since 1902.
-The Ellis I. Levitt Auditorium, provided by Norwest Financial Foundation, Des Moines.
Ellis I. Levitt was the longtime chairman of Dial Finance, which later became Norwest Financial
Services, Inc. Levitt's son Richard S. Levitt (1952 B.A., 1954 J.D.), has served on the boards of
directors of the Iowa Law School Foundation and the UI Foundation.
-The Theodore A. Michels Dean's Office, provided by Catherine Joan Johnson, Iowa
City. Catherine Johnson is the daughter of Theodore A Michels (1917 J.D.), who practiced law
in Washington for 31years.
-The Shuttleworth & Ingersoll Seminar Room, provided by the members of Shuttleworth
& Ingersoll, a Cedar Rapids law firm founded in 1853.
-The Stanley, Lande, Coulter & Pearce Rare Book Room, provided by the members of
Stanley, Lande, Coulter & Pearce, a Muscatine law firm established in 1957.
-The Judge William W. Thinnes Judge's Chambers, provided by former clerks, friends
and colleagues of Judge William W. Thinnes. Thinnes, who died in 1985, served as a bankruptcy
judge for the Northern District of Iowa for 20 years.
-The Heninger and Heninger Journal of Corporation Law Room, provided by the
members of Heninger and Heninger, a fourth-generation Davenport law firm that acquired its
current name in 1966.
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-The Joseph B. Tye Student Lounge, made possible by the Joe B. Tye (1923 J.D.)
Memorial Fund, established by his wife, Martha-Ellen Tye of Marshalltown. Joe B.Tye was a
prominent Marshalltown businessman and attorney. Martha-Ellen Tye has served on the boards
of directors of the Iowa Law School Foundation and the UI Foundation.
-"For All Seasons," provided by the College of Law faculty, a gift of art for the building
entrance.
Architect’s Reflections
I am enormously honored to stand here in this building today. I am thank-ful to the
university and to the law school for the opportunity to create a building of this significance.
There is an enormous responsibility that rests with an architec-tural team and tonight I am
spokesman for all my associates. My medium is not words; I express myself best in other forms.
I have spoken through this building. What I have said is already here. Words can be erased, but
my buildings are here to stay. Not meaning to be presumptuous, I think this one should stay a
hundred years or more.
The concept for a building, sometimes referred to as a flash of inspiration or a creative
combustion, is something that does not happen without previous preparation for it. This
preparation we like to call design process and in this process we are not alone. We involve the
client and through the client the users of the building-the teachers, the librarians, the
administrators, and the students. We have everyone contributing to it. No creative acts can take
place before we have satisfied all the pragmatic needs, all the functional, and the programmatic
needs. We have to develop empathy for the users, which is one of the big factors affecting
creativity, because without empathy there is no true creativity. So it was that we came to create
the design for this building .The building design follows a concept. I refer to the concept
repeatedly because without a concept there is no building. Of course we know that not every
building needs a special concept, but a building of this magnitude and importance cannot be
created without a concept. The concept is organically grown out of the design process like a baby
is organically grown out of a body. This building is my baby. It is created through this empathythis relationship which has sparked the creativity to shape the building. The concept is not only
bricks and mortar, it is one that has to accommodate the users, one that has to inspire, one that
has to stimulate, and one that has to educate. The building concept is not only to the educational
process taking place inside it, it has to educate the outside world by being there, by being what it
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is and by speaking to the viewer. Buildings speak to us. They ought to speak. Only when
buildings speak to us do we react to them. Sometimes we like what has been said, and sometimes
we don't like it. Either way, good buildings should be expressing themselves.
To me a building is like a human because the building has a face. On the face is written
what is in the soul. The soul has to be expressed. If there is no soul in the building, there is no
expression on the face. It is not just an anonymous face, it is a face that has genetic backgrounds
in it, and cultural backgrounds too. The building's face must be expressive. We want the building
to express quality because quality breeds dignity and we need dignity in our public buildings, but
particularly in a building in which law education will take place.
Let me address just this building tonight with some words about its circular form. The
circle wants to be a good neighbor; it wants to relate equally to all sides. It doesn't take sides.
The circular form wants to be a protector, to insulate the inner activities from outside
distractions. The circular form seeks perfection, as I believe the law profession should always
strive for perfection. The circle is the purist form. Circles cannot be corrupted in any way. If you
corrupt a circle then it becomes dented, or it becomes an ellipse or something else, but not a
circle. So it is a pure geometric form; there's nothing purer. So to me it is an appropriate symbol
for education in law and also the practice of law. This circular building has a center and the hub
you see with a dome on it is that center. The building itself is thought of as a dynamic structure
where activities and spaces rotate around this hub. The hub is the circulation core. That is where
the elevators are, the stairs go up and down; users start and return back to the central space.
It is crowned with this dome. The dome is not meant to be expressive of space as such. It
is more a hint of the dynamic quality of the building itself. It has connotations of the farm silo
which is the most prominent form on the Iowa landscape. I have to say I was impressed coming
to Iowa for our meetings and work sessions with the prevalence of the dome over the silo. I
would say that maybe subconsciously it became a design factor in the proposal.
There are other connotations here which are maybe a little harder to explain. The circle is
one of our western culture's most ancient architectural forms, dating back to the dawn of history.
The circle is also the shape of movement in the universe, which expresses probably the highest
of all physical laws.
These are the last three lines in my poem: "the silo on the farm, the Stonehenge, and the
space city in the universe." Incidentally, I went out to Stonehenge, and Stonehenge is 300 feet in
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diameter, exactly the diameter of this building. To conclude I would like to state that when we
conceive and build great buildings, we have to draw from the past, we have to recognize the
present, and we have to project into the future. I think we have done it here.
In Honor of Willard L. Boyd
This is one of those happy occasions when the claims of history and the claims of
affection coincide.
The dedication of the Willard L. Boyd Law Building commemorates an era that will long
be recalled as one of the most challenging and productive in the history of the University of
Iowa. It expresses the deep affection of the University community for one of its dearest friends.
And it celebrates the legacy of a tireless builder and imaginative shaper of this campus and this
academic community.
Willard L. Boyd has been, and always will be, an ardent advocate of the arts and the
humanities, an unyielding champion of the causes of affirmative action and social justice, a
judicious reconciler of the rule of law with the timeless authority of moral principle, and an
articulate defender of the irrepressible aspirations of the human spirit. We gather, therefore, to
celebrate a remarkable person and a glorious occasion.
When Sandy Boyd left the practice of law in Minneapolis to become an instructor in the
College of Law in 1954, the enrollment at the University of Iowa was just over 8,000. When he
resigned 27 years later-after having served ten years on the law faculty, five years as vice
president for academic affairs, and twelve years as President-the University's enrollment had
more than tripled, to 25,000 students. That explosive rate of growth, coupled with a rapid
expansion of knowledge in virtually every academic discipline, paralleled an unprecedented
period of development under Willard L. Boyd's visionary leadership.
The Boyd era at the University of Iowa will be remembered as a period of extraordinary
growth and exhilarating intellectual achievement. We are the grateful inheritors and beneficiaries
of the University that President Boyd preserved, strengthened, and made ready for the future.
For example, a recitation of the names of buildings erected or opened during President
Boyd's tenure is so long that it is sometimes hard to imagine that any building was standing
earlier, except perhaps for Old Capitol and the other buildings on the Pentacrest: the Museum of
Art, the Spence Laboratories of Psychology, the addition to the Iowa Memorial Union, the
Recreation Building, the Music Building, the College of Nursing Building, the restoration of Old
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Capitol, Hancher Auditorium, the Bowen Science Building, Lindquist Center, the Dental Science
Building, the Main Library addition, the Health Sciences Library, the Carver and Colloton
Pavilions, the North Tower addition (now the Willard L. and Susan K. Boyd Tower), the Alumni
Center, and Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
During the tragic period of the American war in Vietnam, it was the heroic resolve, the
courageous statesmanship, and the sensitive conscience of Willard L. Boyd that held the
University of Iowa on a steady course.
Whether speaking in private conference rooms or before throngs of persons on the
Pentacrest, whether counseling patience to those fired by idealism or elevating the sights of
those bemired in cynicism, whether cajoling the complacent or calming the turbulent, Sandy
Boyd was everywhere and at all times a figure of stability and openness, reason and com passion.
The University of Iowa emerged from that ordeal as a stronger and more humane
institution, and none of us can ever forget that it was President Boyd who demonstrated by his
example that it was possible for a university to weather a volatile political storm without
compromising its soul.
In naming this building for Willard L. Boyd, we make a strong decision declaration of the
ideals that we expect the faculty of law and the students of law to espouse and uphold.
This is a building where members of the legal profession will be prepared not only to
practice their craft, but also to assume the highest obligations of citizenship, as advocates and
guardians of the Ed Hansell, president of the Law School Foundation Board, joins Freedman and
Hines to present democratic values upon which our society's deepest aspirations for justice
depend.
President Boyd's exemplary leadership during his 27-year tenure as an active member of
this University community calls to mind-and fulfills-the exhortation of Jean-Paul Sartre:
It is our duty to reaffirm, against the Machiavellians, against the golden calf of realism,
the existence of the moral act.
The Willard L. Boyd Law Building is dedicated to the duty of reaffirming, against the
Machiavellians and whatever golden calves there may be, the existence of the moral act and the
supremacy of the rule of law.
Honoree’s Response
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How much better the past looks in the soft glow of afterward. I have told Jim Freedman,
often privately, and I want to say to you publicly, and I say this with all the sincerity I can
muster, that the best thing I ever did was to retire and make way for him. His intellectual and
humane leadership of this university continually advances us as an exceptional place of higher
education. People, not structures make a great university, make a great law school. Faculty
salaries are more important than brick and mortar, but faculty salaries are not enough.
Commitment is the essence of greatness. The Iowa Law School has this commitment, and so it
has the key ingredient of even greater greatness. We have an impressive faculty, an able student
body, an ideal student/ teacher ratio, an extraordinary library, an exceptional physical facility,
and a tradition of aspiring to be better.
Back in 1954, Professor John O. Bryne said our objective out to be to make Iowa the best
second-rate law school in the nation. He was prepared to concede first rank to maybe two or
three dozen law schools, but he felt Iowa should be the best of the rest. In 1986, Dean Hines
articulately challenges us to become one of the five best public law schools. A tall order, one to
which this university and this state have responded with the material wherewithal. Now it's up to
the law school.
Much has been said about legal education. Its purposes, however, are simple. Nearly fifty
years ago Virgil Hancher contended that a law student should possess at graduation "a minimum
body of basic and fundamental knowledge, which is commonly possessed by members of the
profession. Skill in handling source material and in adding to one's previously acquired body of
knowledge. The ability to think, analyze, and act in the presence of new or unprecedented
situations and an ethical attitude towards the uses to which a member of the profession may put
his or her knowledge and skill."
The law is indeed an intellectual pursuit, but intellect is not enough. Law deals with the
affairs of people. Legal education should be a broadening, not a narrowing experience. Lawyers
must be more than learned in the law, they must be more than technocrats in a regulated society.
Appropriately, Jim Freedman reminds us that "Persons who are professionals must have a
profound understanding of human beings and the social context in which we all live. Unless a
lawyer has achieved an understanding of the human condition he or she will be a technician
perhaps, but a professional never. The inclusion of a legal education in a university setting is an
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important means of insuring that young men and women training to be lawyers will indeed
receive an education that will enlarge their understanding of the human condition."
Broad understanding and open mindedness are essential characteristics of a great lawyer.
So also are public integrity and public service. In our times the law school has demonstrated its
commitment to integrity. Our mentor was Mason Ladd. It was he who argued that his fellow
Iowan, Henry Wallace, should be allowed to speak on campus when Mr. Wallace sought the
presidency on a third party ticket in a time of national hysteria. It was Mason Ladd who took off
his overalls one hot Saturday afternoon and drove some fifty miles on a two- lane highway to a
tavern and visited with a bartender who had refused to serve a black woman law student. She had
no recourse but to turn to her dean because there was then no Civil Rights Commission.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, David Vernon and Arthur Bonfield stated simply that
we could not close the university to protest the Vietnam War because it would interfere with the
civil liberties of those who wanted to go to school. And it was an Iowa graduate who
scrupulously provided campus due process for protestors. Retired Chief Justice Theodore
Garfield practiced the integrity the rest of us preach. Justice Garfield also demonstrated that
unpopular public service is the mark of a great lawyer. He came out of retirement to be vilified,
and then ultimately revered by all those who witnessed his professionalism in the courtroom in
the old law school.
The public service calls the lawyer long before retirement, most clearly in legal services
for unpopular and impoverished clients. How then does a law school imbue a sense of
commitment to those clients, to those in need of our services? The greatness of the Iowa law
school will be measured by more than the aptitude scores of its students, more than the
publications of its faculty, more than the placement of its graduates. Vital as they are, the Iowa
Law School will be judged by the integrity and public services of its graduates and faculty.
Thirty years ago, Joseph Rosenfield said the Iowa law school has been the single most influential
institution in Iowa. He made that claim because it had produced leaders for all areas of Iowa life.
Will it be possible to say the same of the Iowa Law School thirty years hence? That is the
challenge laid before us by this brick and mortar which we celebrate today.
And now a word or two about brick and mortar. Since coming to Iowa City in 1868, the
law school has had four homes, two new and two remodelled. The old capitol provided an
inspiring and congenial welcome when William Hammond brought Judge Wright's law school to
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Iowa City in 1868. Nineteen ten brought a new law building, Gilmore Hall. There the Iowa law
school established its preeminence among American law schools, and reached what some might
say were its golden years in the toughest of economic times. It prepared outstanding lawyers for
Iowa and the nation and it contributed substantially to legal scholarship.
Big Ten rivalry has served us well academically. The 1920's and 1930's saw the
education deans of Iowa and Minnesota become the extraordinary presidents of these two
universities. Spending their summers together in northern Minnesota they were properly
concerned less with football rivalry than they were with academic rivalry. That rivalry
fortunately focused on the two law libraries. Walter Jessup's competitive spirit had much to do
with the preeminent position the Iowa law library enjoys today as one of the best in the nation.
Leader in the Great Depression, Eugene Gilmore, held the law school first and later the
university to the highest academic standards. He said in 1937 that educational practices must
move the public at the highest level of which it is capable, which may be stern and rigorous. In
the years after World War II, the state of Iowa did not prosper as other states, and Virgil Hancher
and Mason Ladd had very few financial resources. Nevertheless they found money for the law
library and the law review, Mason's exceptional faculty recruiting propelled the law school
upward and forward to the more affluent economic times of the 1960's. The 1960's also brought a
substantial change in the approach to legal education. The Iowa public, general assembly, and
Regents were ready and willing to invest substantially in higher education including law. When
David Vernon joined us and said we need to treble the law faculty, the university asked why. The
faculty then proceeded to frame a curriculum and program that justified the investment of
resources comparable to those required in graduate education throughout the university. Larry
Blades reminded us that as beneficiaries of the law school we also must give of our own funds to
assure its excellence.
Bill Hines then asserted that more and better law school space was needed. Regent
Donald Shaw demanded new space expressly planned for law rather than an addition to the law
commons. How then to secure a new law school? Exhausted by their lawyer peers, and because it
was literally the law school's turn, the regents recommended a new building to the governor and
the general assembly. How then to convince the peoples' representatives? How better than to
follow Walter Jessup's Big Ten rivalry precedent? Surely a great football team deserves a great
law school. Governor Ray, Senator Wally Horn and all of the law school supporters in the
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Legislature said it would mean a lot for the university to go to the Rose Bowl. So we recruited
Hayden Fry, who got us to the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1982. Iowans are people of their word
and the right sum for the right law school was provided by both the state and the private donors.
Where then to put the new law school? The east side of the campus where the law school
spent ninety-four years offered the invigorating cross-currents of the arts and sciences. Regent
Ray Bailey argued for the west side where most of the Professional schools are now located. He
was right, aesthetically. And so today we have a law school building which is both an artistic and
functional triumph. We owe much to Dr. Arthur Steindler and his neighbors whose homesteads
we have supplanted; to Howard Bowen, whose unbending commitment to excellence included
searching out the best architects, wherever they may be, and to May Brodbeck who believed in
the law as liberal education.
With its silver-domed silo, this building will always remind us it is the Iowa law school
just as Gilmore Hall did with its foot scrapers for mud and manure as you entered. We are proud
of the Iowa land which has made possible the Iowa law school for one hundred twenty years. We
are proud of the vision that President Freedman has for the university, and we are proud of what
the law school is about to accomplish as an essential part of that university vision.
People, not structures, make a great law school. I am ever indebted to the people who
taught me so much in this law school, my students, my early faculty colleagues, Mason Ladd,
Odis Knight Patton, Clarence Milton Updegraff, Paul Lombard Sayre, Frank Kennedy, and
Arthur Leff. I am also grateful to my present faculty and staff colleagues, the alumni, and the
bench and bar of Iowa, friends, legislators, and taxpayers who have been steadfast in their
support of the university. I want to pay special tribute to my long time colleagues and friends,
Charlie Davidson and Sam Fahr who have served so well in three law school homes. I want to
join with them in saluting our beloved Allan Vestal who always kept the law school's feet to the
fire of quality and concern. People, not structures, make a great university. I am ever indebted to
the people who made this university great and who have given me a liberal education in the
process. Iowa's governors, Regents, and Board officers have never once wavered in their
commitment to academic excellence and academic freedom. It's a great day, you haven't changed
a bit, and Susan and I are deeply touched by all you have done for us through the years and we
look forward to retirement with you in the not too distant future. Thank you.
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Reviewers Laud New Building
High on a bluff overlooking the Iowa River and the rest of the campus, the new law
building shouldn't, and hasn't gone unnoticed. It has generated much commentary in the
community, the state, and in architectural circles-and not surprisingly most of it has been
favorable!
In prior visits, ABA/ AALS inspection teams had found Iowa's old physical facilities to
be "woefully inadequate" to house a faculty, student body and library collection of Iowa's size
and stature. The report of the ABA/AALS inspection team who visited in April, 1986, described
the new building as "one of the most handsome and utilitarian such structures in the country. It
more than meets all reasonable demands for class- rooms, offices, and library space for a school
of some 600 students."
The October, 1986 issue of The Spectator, a quarterly publication of the University of
Iowa, contained an article praising the unique features of this new center for legal study and
research. "There's general agreement among faculty and students that the new law building is an
impressive, exciting place to teach, learn, and work."
Irving Weber, Iowa City's renowned architectural historian, traced the history of the site
and the college from the beginnings of each in the Emphasis section of the Iowa City Press
Citizen in early October: "Located high on the bluff above the bustling intersection of Riverside
Drive and Grand Avenue, the new $25 million building commands a magnificent view of the
Iowa River and the east side campus, with Old Capitol, its finest home, in the distance. The
tranquility and beauty of the bluff with its century-old oaks with mammoth limbs paralleling the
ground, belies the teeming traffic crossing the Iowa River on the city's two busiest bridges
below."
Blair Kamin, writing for the Des Moines Register in the Opinion Section of its Sunday,
October 12th issue, had extensive comments. He first adverted to public concern that such an
expensive facility was built when Iowans can least afford it, but then went on to praise the style
and durability of the building. "Make no mistake," Kamin stated, "Designer Gunnar Birkerts of
Birmingham, Mich., had done justice to this important commission. It may not be ivy-covered,
but with some notable exceptions, this buildings works-as urban design, as architecture and as a
functioning law school. To those who would have raised a warehouse for law books, Birkerts'
design provides the best retort: It is a first-rate, built-for-the-ages building of which Iowans can
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be proud." Of Birkerts' use of natural light throughout the structure, Kamin wrote: "Light makes
his round building go 'round. Whether it is bouncing off the walls beneath hallway skylights,
seeping through windows framing view of the Iowa River or flooding the law library with
kaleidoscopic reflections, light is the animating force here." He praised most of the interior
design features, and was underwhelmed with only the center core of the building, having
expected a "soaring, domelike space."
In the September-October issue of The Iowa Architect, Rob Tibbetts observed: "Birkerts'
high design disposition is obvious throughout. He sees the building as earthbound and by means
of expressing this view he has figuratively chosen materials found on the site. The seamless
limestone skin and horizontal metal trim appear vaguely as a geological formation. The extensive
oak trim and reserved earthen pallette inside all affirm the sedate, resolute demeanor that the
building exudes. Even the silo dome which houses some of the mechanical systems is a
borrowed icon from Iowa's agricultural landscape. For all of its bucolically inspired materials,
the structure stands as an overwhelming example of the intricate and imaginative potential of
contemporary modernism. As a mechanistic device, the circular form is defined along a solar
axis, utilizing techniques such as ingenious system of transoms to ensure natural light to virtually
all areas of the building. Supplement materials such as aluminum and reflective glass, along with
a masterful fenestration design are indicative of a pure and modern vocabulary. At any rate, the
building will immediately become one of the university's most visible, as the tens of thousands
of football fans that descend upon Iowa City each fall will unavoidably drive very, very slowly
past the new site. Perhaps even a few will be stirred enough by the excellence of the design to
consider academics in the same vein as athletics."
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