Supreme Court justice gives dedication of courtroom

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer spoke at the dedication of Moot Courtroom at the University of Richmond's T.C. Williams School of Law Thursday afternoon.

The courtroom is dedicated to Robert Merhige Jr., a former U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Virginia and a Richmond law school graduate, where he graduated at the top of the class. Merhige died in 2005.

Wendy Collins Perdue, the law school dean, said that Merhige was well-known for his enforcement of the integration of Virginia schools in 1972.

As a part of the generation who had to enforce the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Merhige was a hero, Breyer said. Breyer described Merhige as a great man who had stood up for the need to enforce the principle of equal protection under the law.

In his dedication, Breyer spoke about the need to educate students at a young age about the role of the judicial branch in the protection of civil liberties in order to sustain a healthy democracy and garner participation in society.

"If there is too much cynicism then the government can't work," Breyer said. "What I can do to help is rather specific. ...I can do very little, but I can describe what the Supreme Court does."

Students have to look at the countries where guns and violence are used to resolve problems and then compare those countries to the U.S. and to how the nation has resolved similar issues to understand the judicial branch's necessity, Breyer said.

For undergraduate students considering whether to go into law, Breyer said that it was a very good field.

"It is a field that calls for the use of your heart and your head," Breyer said in a brief interview after the dedication. "You have to have a good mind and use it in order to advance the interests of someone besides yourself."

Contact staff writer Elizabeth Ygartua at elizabeth.ygartua@richmond.edu