Professor A.E. Dick Howard of the University of Virginia School of Law will discuss the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House during the first Sandra Day O’Connor Lecture at 6:30 p.m., tonight, Oct. 18, in Whitley Auditorium. His lecture, titled "The Struggle for the Supreme Court," is free and open to the public. Details...
The lecture series is named for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who dedicated Elon University School of Law in 2006. The series will bring leading scholars to Elon annually to examine contemporary legal topics.
Howard will discuss the evolution of the U.S. Supreme Court from the Warren Court around the time of the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins to the present day. He will emphasize the interplay between the Court and several presidents—especially Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush—who have sought to change the Court’s direction.
Howard is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. An authority in constitutional law, Howard was executive director of the commission that wrote Virginia’s new constitution and directed the successful referendum campaign for its ratification. He has been counsel to the General Assembly of Virginia and a consultant to state and federal bodies, including the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. From 1982 to 1986, he served as Counselor to the Governor of Virginia and chaired Virginia’s Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution.
Howard has also served as a constitutional consultant in other U.S. states and foreign countries, including Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Russia and South Africa. In 1996, the Union of Czech Lawyers, citing Howard’s “promotion of the idea of a civil society in Central Europe,” awarded him its Randa Medal, the first time the honor has been conferred upon anyone other than a Czech citizen.
Howard has briefed and argued cases before state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the author of a number of books, articles and monographs, including “Democracy’s Dawn” and “Constitution-making in Eastern Europe,” and is a regular guest on television news programs.
Twice named a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Howard was the first Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Residence at Rhodes House, Oxford University, in 2001. Howard received his undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond and a law degree from the University of Virginia. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.