KU Law News
KU Law News
March 12, 2008
High school students learn about Thurgood Marshall's legacy
High school students from Kansas City, Kan., arrive at Green Hall for the 12th annual Thurgood Marshall Law Day.
Chris Howard understands the value of fighting for what’s right.
A belligerent white driver once threw his father off a bus in Birmingham, Ala. It was 1951, and the elder Howard had sat next to the man’s young son at the front of the vehicle – an innocent mistake by a 5-year-old boy on his first bus ride in the deeply segregated South.
Even at that young age, the sting of the pavement signaled injustice to Howard’s father, who spent the decades that followed battling on the front lines of the civil rights movement.
His son, Chris, benefited from his brave work. He graduated from the University of Kansas School of Law in 2001 and is now associate athletic director for alumni relations at KU.
Chris Howard told his story during the keynote address at the 12th annual Thurgood Marshall Law Day. More than 50 students from Kansas City high schools attended the event on Feb. 29 at Green Hall.
Named in honor of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall Law Day allows the Black Law Students Association to reach out to youth, providing them with engaging discussions on contemporary law topics and creating awareness of the sacrifices made by people like Marshall.
“The message that I have for you all today is that we are only 40 years removed from segregation in this country, and as we move forward … we have to remember our history,” Howard said during his address. “We have to embrace our history – whether good, bad or ugly – and we have to make sure that we do not repeat our history.
“In order for this country and our society to be truly what it can really be, it’s going to one day fall on you. You all have to keep fighting the fight and fighting injustice as you see it.”
Students from Schlagle High School, J.C. Harmon High School, Wyandotte High School and the Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences heard Dean Gail Agrawal recount Justice Marshall’s life story. After graduating with honors from Lincoln University in Oxford, Pa., Marshall applied to the all-white University of Maryland School of Law, where he was denied admission.
Like Howard’s father, Marshall parlayed that early brush with racism into a life’s work that altered the fabric of America. Armed with a law degree from Howard University, he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young black Amherst University graduate and later helped shatter the separate but equal doctrine in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education.
He became U.S. Solicitor General in 1965 and was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court two years later, having won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the court on behalf of the government – more than any other American.
Agrawal, who clerked at the Supreme Court during part of Marshall’s tenure, recalled that he used to tell young lawyers who worked there that they didn’t get to that point by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
“What he used to say was, ‘You got here because somebody else – a parent, a teacher, a few nuns – helped you pick up your boots,’” Agrawal told the students. “So today, what the law school wants to do as part of Thurgood Marshall Day, to honor him, is to help you pick up your boots so that you can see what the power of the law is, and what the law can do.
“What Justice Marshall used to say was that the law really was the power to open doors and to knock down walls. And he should know, because he did a lot of that.”
In addition to hearing from Chris Howard and Dean Agrawal, the students also watched a video about Thurgood Marshall’s life and discussed cyber law topics, such as the legality of downloading music from the Internet, with Jelani Jefferson, associate professor of law.
The event was sponsored by the Law School Admission Council as part of National Minority Law School Recruitment Month. The KU School of Law values diversity in its student body and believes the intentional creation of a diverse learning environment is essential to achieving the university's educational mission.
Joshua Monteiro, president of BLSA, said he hoped the students who participated in the day’s activities would think about a career in law.
“Many of us who are here now were around your age when we decided to come to law school,” he said. “You could be here with us one day.”