Civics, Compromise, and How Decisions Get Made

The final Askwith Education Forum of the spring semester featured a reflection on how government and the law impacts the American education system from one of the most influential members of America’s highest court.

The Honorable Stephen G. Breyer shared insights from his time on the bench and offered an inside look at how the court ruled on some of the most complex and challenging cases during his nearly 28 years as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court.

Introducing the evening’s conversation, Dean Nonie Lesaux quoted Breyer who once described public schools as "nurseries of democracy” and highlighted the connective thread between education, civics, and the rule of law in America.

“At a moment when education and democracy face unprecedented challenges in the U.S. and around the world,” said Lesaux, “We are so very fortunate to be able to learn from a public servant and scholar who has spent a lifetime thinking about how institutions — including our schools — endure and thrive.”

Breyer, who mentioned that his wife, Joanna Breyer, Ed.M.’75, was a graduate of the Ed School, shared the Askwith Hall stage with Academic Dean Martin West, who led the retired justice through a number of landmark cases Breyer ruled on that involved schools, free speech, and affirmative action.

While discussing a free speech case involving a high school student, Breyer at one point pulled a copy of the U.S. Constitution out of his jacket pocket and read aloud the First Amendment, which guarantees citizens free speech. Breaking down its wording, Breyer noted what it says and doesn’t say, and detailed the “roadmap” it offers citizens to engage in their democracy.

“Why do we have this? Because we live in a democracy, and we therefore have a problem: How can 340 million people shape these 538 who have the actual power to make the law?” asked Breyer asked. “It’s going to somehow be through public opinion.”

Though Breyer noted that around 40% of the cases the high court hears see unanimous rulings, the more rare split decisions offer valuable lessons in the various interpretations of the U.S. Constitution and how he carried out his job on the high court.

“Law itself is a human institution, and it’s a human institution that has a basic function,” said Breyer. “Not always successfully, not always done, but it has a basic point of trying to get people in communities to live together more peacefully and more productively.”

Breyer touched on the various ways judges can interpret the Constitution, the value of reading words as they are written or diving into the meaning behind them, and how one’s own upbringing impacts the way they form legal opinions.

“The best I can do in the cases that you brought up, which are extremely difficult for me, is to try to show you how you work with value-infused principles to try to figure out the better answer to the case,” said Breyer. “You’ll never know whether this result you reached in this case is going to help or not. You try. And I would only disagree with you if you think that isn’t similar to teaching. I think it is.”

Breyer, who retired from the high court in 2022 but still works the bench on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, touched on recent rulings the Court has made since his retirement. He expressed optimism in recalling conversations about the future he’s had with young students, noting that they’re especially interested when he offers lessons about finding compromise among those that disagree.

“They’re interested. They’re interested in what they might do to cure some of these problems in front of us,” Breyer said, pulling out his pocket constitution one more time. “Whether right or wrong, it’s the look in their eyes that makes me optimistic.”