Commencement Address
Judge John E. Jones III '77

President Durden, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman, and most of all, my soon to be fellow alumni in the Class of 2006 and your families, thank you for giving me this rare honor. What a great and appropriate mix we have before you today. Let me congratulate my fellow honorees Brenda Marie Osbey and Professor William Berggren for your splendid careers and marvelous work. And allow me to recognize one of our own, who has embodied the very spirit of Dickinson College throughout generations of students. Professor Ben James, I am so honored to be on this platform with you on a day when you are receiving such deserved public recognition for influencing so many of us in such a positive way. I doubt that you will ever know the impact of your inspiration on the world at large, but for thousands of Dickinson students, your lessons concerning loving, living, and having the ability to change, are ideals that we cherish.

When you are tasked to give a commencement speech anywhere, the pressure is really on. That is even more true when your alma mater calls! The very first thing you think about is all of the dreadful, overly long, cliché filled commencement speeches that you've heard. For my part I remember endless speeches containing lines like: "Today the torch is passing to you..." (What the heck does that mean?) or "The world you will enter is a dangerous place" (Oh REALLY!) or "You are the leaders of tomorrow" (That may or may not be true). I am determined to avoid those banalities today. Now, whether I have done so and have thus succeeded in being topical and informative will be for you to decide. But I will do my best.

Not long ago, I decided a case that caused me to become, at least temporarily, somewhat famous in the world at large. And while I have accomplished some interesting things in my life, I know that my invitation to speak to you today is largely the result of my work in that trial involving the concept of intelligent design. In the course of the Kitzmiller v. Dover case I heard from experts in among other fields those of biology, philosophy, theology, paleontology, and science education. And, I had to use my common sense and hopefully good judgment to weigh the credibility of many lay witnesses as well.

One might be tempted to assume that I received all of the tools necessary to understand the complex expert testimony and determine the facts solely through my law school education. If so, they would be incorrect. In fact, it was my liberal arts education, achieved right here at Dickinson College that provided me with the best ability to handle the rather monumental task of deciding the Dover case. In response to that assertion, some of you might say: "But judge, you've been out of here for nearly thirty years. How could that be?" Let me explain some things to you about how this milestone in my career, a momentary experience in the great scheme of my life that I might deem my "Dover moment", relates to my Dickinson experience. My explanation will I think highlight the value of a superb liberal arts education.

The rationale for the educational experience that you have just completed dates back to the time of our Founding Fathers. As many of you know, two of our Founding Fathers, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and John Dickinson, loomed large in the founding of this institution. They, along with others such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, believed in the concept of a "useful" education. It is well to note that these men decidedly did not believe in learning for learning's sake. And yet sometimes today, Dickinson and other liberal arts institutions, as promoted and created by the Founders, are viewed as expensive anachronisms, or worse, unnecessary indulgences. They are not, and I stand before you today as living proof of that fact.

As has been often written, our Founding Fathers were children of The Enlightenment. So influenced, they possessed a "great confidence in an individual's ability to understand the world and its most fundamental laws through the exercise of his or her reason."* And that reason was best developed, they clearly believed, by a broad based liberal arts education that caused its recipients to engage the world by constantly questioning and persuading others.

Ironically, but perhaps fittingly for my purposes today, we see the Founders' ideals quite clearly, among many places, in the Establishment Clause within the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This of course was the clause that I determined the school board had violated in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. While legal scholars will continue to debate the appropriate application of that clause to particular facts in individual cases, this much is very clear. The Founders believed that "true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry."* At bottom then, this core set of beliefs led the Founders, who constantly engaged and questioned things," to secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state."*

As I hope that you can see, these precepts and beliefs, grounded in my liberal arts education, guide me each day as a federal trial judge. I am daily exposed to many disciplines, I must learn and relearn things constantly, and I am at risk of deciding a case incorrectly if I accept that which is presented to me at face value.

And so what are the lessons for you in all of this? You are not children of The Enlightenment, but you are now the product of the closest we can come to approximating that---recipients of a strong liberal arts education. So allow me to then suggest these lessons. First, the fundamental idea behind what you have now accomplished is that you are leaving here with all of the tools, but you must use them wisely. The love of learning that I hope has been instilled in you, the tendency to question all that is around you, and the ability to engage the world, all of these things must not be left on this beautiful campus as you depart this weekend. These traits, now inculcated, must endure and be cultivated. Remember that Thomas Jefferson, throughout his life, accumulated a library of almost ten thousand books. George Washington died with nearly a thousand volumes in his collection. These gentlemen read voraciously, including daily newspapers and periodicals.

Now, I don't mean to compare myself with either of these men, but at age fifty my night stand is stacked with books on many subjects, I read several newspapers each day, and numerous magazines each week. And just like you, I also consume information and news on-line. Let me suggest to you that if you fail to make your life after Dickinson the continuum of learning that many of us have, you will have wasted all that you have gained to this point. Nothing, and I repeat nothing, gives me more distress than to hear someone say: "Well, I just don't follow the news and current events, since it just upsets me." You must never sell yourselves short, nor should you intentionally dumb yourselves down by being ignorant of that which is taking place all around you. Never cease learning, and through that you will continue to grow and accentuate the best features of the educational foundation you have built at Dickinson College.

Joseph Campbell was a lifelong student and teacher of the human spirit and mythology. Some of you may have studied him. He said something that I read once and never forgot. It has guided me in my life, and I would suggest that it should guide yours. Campbell said this: "I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time--namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

How then, members of the Class of 2006, do you follow your bliss? Well, you've already started, haven't you? You have completed courses of study in your chosen majors. Some of you will follow your bliss as you embark on graduate studies. Others are about to enter the workforce. Many of you will soon start families. Whatever it is that you do, the basic goals for all of you should be the same. You must always keep learning. You have an obligation to always engage the world at large. Remain appropriately skeptical as you question those things that for others may seem well settled. And know that your bliss is a moving target. For me, it was at various times getting an education, becoming a lawyer, engaging in the political process, holding public office, becoming a judge, and of course being a husband and father. So your bliss will be multifaceted as well. But let me submit that you must pursue those areas that will allow you to be passionate and happy about what you are doing at any given time. If you do so, I assure you that the invisible hand Joseph Campbell described will guide you to your bliss.

In my life, a great confluence of using the value of my liberal arts education and following my bliss happened recently as I sat as the presiding judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. Having achieved a career goal of becoming a federal judge, I was able to apply a lifetime of accumulated learning in resolving a dispute upon which world attention had focused. For you, these moments of confluence, your own "Dover moments", can and should happen in a myriad of circumstances both large and small. And I'm certain that if you continue to learn, you'll be prepared when they do.

Graduation from college can be, I know, a wrenching and traumatic thing, as you leave close friends and the comfort of this jewel of an institution. But fear not, new graduates. The real adventure is just beginning. I am excited for your future, and the history that you will help to make. I am entirely confident that when you face your own "Dover moments", you will be prepared, as I was, for these challenges.

Thank you again for this distinct privilege, as well as for awarding me this magnificent honorary degree, which I will treasure. I hardly feel worthy of it, and I am both humbled and deeply moved. The experience of giving a commencement address at one's alma mater is indeed one of a lifetime, and I shall never forget your kindness in asking me to do so. Today, here in a veritable sea of Dickinsonians, none stands prouder than this one. Congratulations to you all, and again, my heartfelt thanks for allowing me to be a part of this momentous day in your lives.

*Quotations from The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America by Frank Lambert (Princeton University Press, 2003).

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