Was Bork Right about Judges
![handle is hein.journals/hjlpp34 and id is 163 raw text is: WAS BORK RIGHT ABOUT JUDGES?
THOMAS B. GRIFFITH*
The American public first met Robert Bork during the 1987
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that considered his
nomination to the Supreme Court. Compared with more re-
cent judicial confirmations, the Bork hearing was highly dra-
matic. Most are aware of its outcome, which led to an addition to
the English language: bork -meaning to [d]efame or vilify
(a person) ... esp[ecially] with the aim of making it difficult
for him or her to hold public office.1 Few are familiar, how-
ever, with Judge Bork's distinguished career before that con-
tentious and transformative hearing.
Robert Bork had been a tenured professor at Yale Law
School, authored a watershed book that shifted the paradigm
of antitrust law and helped make possible our comfortable
standard of living,2 served as Solicitor General of the United
States, and worked as a federal appellate judge on the D.C. Cir-
cuit, the court on which I now sit. I am reminded of Judge
Bork's legacy every time I don my robe. My locker in the rob-
ing room is across a narrow aisle from his, which is marked by
a brass plate that bears his name. Once robed, I enter a court-
room in which his portrait-a Rembrandt-like rendition of the
Judge in which he appears broodingly omnipresent-hangs.
He is watching, and that is fine by me.
I first became aware of Robert Bork during my first year of
law school. I remember the moment when I pulled Volume 47
of the Indiana Law Journal from a shelf in the library at the Uni-
versity of Virginia and began reading his classic article, Neutral
* United States Circuit Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; J.D., Uni-
versity of Virginia School of Law; 1985, B.A., Brigham Young University, 1978. I would
like to thank Robert Porter, Michael Fawcett, and Anthony Dick for their assistance
with this Essay.
1.1 SHORTER OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY: ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES 271 (6th ed.
2007).
2. ROBERT H. BORK, THE ANTITRUST PARADOX: A POLICY AT WAR WITH ITSELF (1978).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hjlpp34&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Was Bork Right about Judges
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most