Nina Totenberg, we honor you today for your work as an
award-winning legal correspondent and journalist, most notably for the National
Public Radio’s critically acclaimed newsmagazines, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition. A
public intellectual of the highest caliber, your life and career exemplify the
characteristics of critical engagement, intellectual flexibility, and
usefulness that we value so highly here at Dickinson.
After attending Boston University, where you majored in
journalism, you began your career at the Boston
Record-American and Peabody Times,
before moving to Washington D.C. where you reported for the Roll Call, the National Observer and New
Times. You began your work in broadcast journalism when you were hired at
National Public Radio in 1975, just four years after that important network had
originated. For over 37 years you have covered the Supreme Court, bringing your
keen observational skills and astute analysis to your in-depth reports.
As an investigative reporter, your work has been key to
bringing to the attention of the American people the complex deliberations
within the Supreme Court. In 1977 you broke the story of the Supreme Court’s
deliberations regarding the three men—Haldeman, Mitchell and Ehrlichman—who
were appealing their convictions in the Watergate scandal. In 1986 you broke
the story that Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nominee William Rehnquist had
previously argued that the Equal Rights Amendment would lead to the “dissolution
of the family” and “virtually abolish all legal distinctions between men and
women.” In 1988 you won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton
award for outstanding broadcast journalism for your breaking story on Douglas
Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court. In 1991, you broke the story of
University of Oklahoma Professor Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment
by Judge Clarence Thomas, which eventually led the Senate Judiciary Committee
to re-open the confirmation hearings. For your investigative reporting,
exclusive interview with Hill, and extensive coverage of this case you won the
very prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. In 2000, you reported extensively
on the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, bringing clarity to a nation very
confused by the state of our presidential election.
Over the years your work has earned you numerous
distinctions. You have won the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism,
the American Library Association James Madison Award, given to those they deem
champions of the public’s right to know, the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the
Society of Professional Journalists, the American Bar Association’s awards for
excellence in legal reporting, and the National Press Foundation’s award as
Broadcaster of the Year. Your work as a legal correspondent has also led to
your participation as a panelist on the TV program Inside
Washington, and, previously, as a commentator on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and ABC’s Nightline. You also contribute regularly to print media including
the Harvard Law Review and the New York Times Magazine.
These important and well-deserved awards and by-lines
identify you as one of the most well-known and well-respected professionals in
journalism today. They mark what many Americans already know—that yours is the
voice we have come to trust to explain to us the machinations and significance
of one of the most powerful bodies in the United States—the Supreme Court. You
are a masterful storyteller, whose daily reports from the inner sanctum of the
Supreme Court allow us to listen on the edge of our seats as we hear “First
Justice Alito said, then Justice Kennedy asked, to which Justice Ginsburg
retorted…” Few reporters have this gift of making complicated and often
rarified subject matter into material that we all can understand and debate.
You have the ability to identify the key components of any legal argument, and
to intelligently link those legal issues to some of the most pressing social,
political and cultural issues of the day. Not only are you a gifted reporter,
then, you are also a gifted teacher.
Indeed, what is so impressive about your work is its dailiness. Under deadline pressure and
with clarity and engagement, your stories come to us week after week. Just in
the last month we have listened to reports on the constitutionality of the
Health Care Law; on the Supreme Court’s affirmation of laws allowing strip
searches for minor offenses; on debates about the immigration laws in Arizona;
on baseball star Roger Clemens’s claims about his use of steroids and human
growth hormone; on the challenges property owners have made to the
Environmental Protection Agency; on the legal standing of life without parole
for juveniles; on in vitro fertilization and the question of whether a child
conceived after a parent’s death is eligible for social security survivor
benefits. Moreover, you have shared with us all this work in your distinctively
calm voice, which is able to tell us what is often the most difficult and
upsetting news in a tone that promises that, in the end, reasonableness will
win the day. It must be for this reason that many of us are proud to carry our
things around in your signature NPR “Nina Toten Bag.”
Mr. President, for her commitment to journalism and
interdisciplinary education of the highest caliber, it is my honor to present
to you Nina Totenberg for the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
*****************
Nina Totenberg, upon the recommendation of the Faculty to
the Board of Trustees, and by its mandamus, I confer upon you the Degree of
Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, with all the rights, privileges, and
distinction thereunto appertaining, in token of which I present you with this
diploma and cause you to be invested with the hood of Dickinson College
appropriate to the degree.