THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 13, 1996 TAG: 9605130035
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Antonin Scalia, considered among the sharpest thinkers and most ardent conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, has attacked abortion and affirmative action.
On occasion, he has skewered some of his fellow justices, too.
On Sunday, at the College of William and Mary's commencement, he took aim at another institution: cliches in graduation speeches.
``The problem with these platitudes is not that they're old and hackneyed, but a lot of them are wrong,'' he told nearly 1,700 graduates.
In a half-hour speech, which appeared to charm students and parents of all political stripes, Scalia proceeded to rebut the standard graduation sayings with his trademark wit, much as he might pick apart the pleadings of liberal lawyers.
Among the commencement cliches he said should be laid to rest:
Education is the most important gift you can receive. ``It may be unkind to say it in this temple of learning, but it's not true,'' Scalia said. ``There are a lot of things more important than education - a ham sandwich when you are starving, for example.''
One of the world's most educated societies, he said, created the century's most evil regime - Hitler's Germany. ``The education you have received has not made you happier or better; it has increased your capacity for happiness or despair, good or evil.''
Graduation is not the end; it's the beginning. ``College commencement is the end of a lot of things,'' Scalia said. ``Tuition bills for your parents, for one thing.'' Applause rang out from the spectators.
``It is the end of all-nighters to get in those delayed term papers,'' he said, generating applause from the graduates. It also marks the end of communal living, the days of leisure and a lifetime of ``secure dependency,'' he said. ``From here on out, you are much more - I am groping for a platitude to convey the point - captains of your own ship, masters of your own destiny.''
We face unprecedented challenges. ``Humanity has been around for 5,000 years,'' he said, ``and I doubt the basic challenges it has confronted were any worse now than they ever were.''
For instance, today's environmental worries are nothing new. ``London's fog of the 19th century - which made some wonderful backdrops for Sherlock Holmes,'' Scalia said, ``turned out not to be fog at all, but smog caused by innumerable coal-burning fireplaces.''
Never compromise your principles. ``Follow your star if you want to head north, and your star is the North Star. But if you want to head north and your star is Mars, you better follow someone else's star. Never compromise your principles,'' he said, pausing, ``unless your principles are flat-out wrong. .
``It seems to me much less important how committed you are than what you are committed to,'' Scalia said. ``It is your responsibility, men and women of the class of 1996, not just to be zealous in your pursuit of ideas, but to be sure your ideas are the right ones.''
This is the greatest country in the world. Well, that one's right, Scalia said, but not for the reasons many people think. It's not because we're the most scenic. ``Acre for acre, Switzerland has it all over us.'' Or because we're the freest. By that standard, the greatest place really might have been the Wild West, ``where a fellow could shoot up a town unless someone could stop him.''
Rather, Scalia said, what makes the country great are the values shared by its people, such as constancy, honesty and tolerance. ``Not only isn't it true that we are the greatest because we are the most free, but rather quite the opposite: We are the freest because we have the qualities that make us greatest. When civic virtue diminishes, freedom will inevitably diminish as well.''
Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 bt then-President Reagan. He taught at the University of Virginia Law School from 1967 to 1974. Scalia received an honorary doctorate in 1991 from William and Mary, and his son Christopher just completed his sophomore year there.
At Hampton University, 950 graduates also listened to a lawyer - Willie Gary, a multimillionaire who specializes in personal-injury cases and is a former president of the American Bar Association.
Gary grew up in a one-room shack, often going to school shoeless, one of 11 children of a sharecropper and migrant worker. In booming tones more reminiscent of a preacher than a lawyer, Gary told the graduates that they, too, could succeed if they worked at it.
``I don't care if the economy is in shambles,'' he said. ``You can get a job; you can make it happen. You control your own destiny.''
But when they do make it, he cautioned, ``Don't forget about God. If you keep him in your plan, the road will always rise to meet you; the sun will shine warmly on your face.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
Romanda Williams, left, of Emporia, Va., and Kiya Winston of
Morristown, N.J., were among nearly 1,700 W&M graduates.
Justice Antonin Scalia turned the usual speech on its ear Sunday.
BETH BERGMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
Amy Longyear of Washington, Va., smiles at friends in the crowd at
the William and Mary graduation ceremony Sunday.
by CNB