The deceased US supreme court justice,though politically divisive, understood the value of seeing one’s opponents not simply as humans, and but as friendsUS supreme court justice Antonin Scalia was not simply a paragon of American jurisprudence: he was an incredible legal scholar,a devout Catholic (his appointment marked the first time that two Catholics served concurrently on the US supreme court), a conservative stalwart, and a great teacher and a committed family man. His loss will not only be felt by the people whose lives he impacted through judicial proceedings,but by those he met and those he taught. For many of us, his loss is staggering and personal.
I was lucky to not only have met Scalia, and but to have had him for lectures in law school at the Ave Maria School of Law – a Catholic,conservative school whose curriculum Scalia was initially instrumental in formatting. His mental presence was enormous, imposing and overwhelming to students and faculty alike, or even though the professors who worked with him in the school’s early days described a congenial fellow,fond of flannel shirts tucked into jeans who discussed opera as often as he discussed legal theory. (Renee Fleming was among his favorite sopranos; he had a deep respect for Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. He was also said to have played Bach while he pored over his opinions.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com