Judge William Henry Hastie - One Who Changed the Immutable
![handle is hein.journals/howlj24 and id is 267 raw text is: Judge William Henry Hastie-One
Who Changed the Immutable
By A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, JR.*
Mr. Chief Justice Burger, President James Cheek, President
Emeritus James Nabrit, Dean Wiley Branton, fellow judges, faculty
and friends of the Howard University community:
It is indeed a coveted honor to give the first William Henry Has-
tie Lecture. This is an occasion which has a special personal mean-
ing to me because Judge Hastie was such an extraordinary person, as
a judge, a leader, an educator, a humanitarian, a thinker, and a
friend. The very presence this evening of the Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court is testimony to Judge Hastie's special
and exceptional impact on the federal judiciary. Yet this is not the
first time the Chief Justice has put aside his overwhelming adminis-
trative and substantive responsibilities to pay tribute to our revered
friend, Bill Hastie. We know that the Chief Justice, because of his
many responsibilities, can attend very few funeral or memorial serv-
ices. But he did come to the United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, along with Associate Justices William J. Brennan, Jr.
and Thurgood Marshall, to speak at the memorial service for Judge
Hastie. At that service, the Chief Justice noted the extraordinary
range of Judge Hastie's experiences and rendered what I believe was
a judgment, confirmed by history and concurred in by all who have
studied the record, that in a court that has always included some of
the outstanding members of the American judiciary, he [Judge Has-
tie] was second to none.' We meet here tonight because in our
* Address delivered at the first annual William H. Hastie Lecture Series of the Howard
University School of Law by A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Judge, United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Third Circuit, Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Lecturer in Law, University of
Pennsylvania; B.A., Antioch College; LL.B., Yale Law School; LL.D., Howard University.
1. Remarks of Chief Justice Warren Burger at the Memorial Service for the Honorable
William H. Hastie, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit, convened by the Honorable Collins J. Seitz, Chief Judge, United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Third Circuit, Friday, June 18, 1976, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, reprinted in 535
F.2d 5, 6 (1976).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/howlj24&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Judge William Henry Hastie - One Who Changed the Immutable
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