The Class of 2012, distinguished guests, family, and friends:
Nine months ago, the LL.M. Class of 2012,
277 strong, arrived from all over the world. We lived each day like we
were visitors, taking in our Columbia and New York experience with an
urgency brought about by the knowledge that our LL.M. year was
time-bound and fleeting. Each day confronted us with a “balancing of
interests”—Central Park or CIAL? SoHo or Securities? MoMA or M&A?
Bar Review or Bright Line Rules?—and our own multi-factor tests that
would have earned a concurrence from Justice Kennedy and a dissent from
Justice Scalia.
But we soon realized that New York isn’t
just a place you visit, it’s a place you inhabit, imbibe, and enjoy; and
our LL.M. year at Columbia was absolutely enhanced by the experience of
learning law and life here. Thank you, Dean Schizer, the faculty, and
staff of Columbia Law, for making our LL.M. year memorable; but special
thanks to Dean Sylvia Polo, Jill Marden Casal, Susanna Ketron, Stephanie
Lowd, and the staff of the GLS, for being patient with us and for
enduring our many, many, many complaints and questions with amazing
equanimity, great humor, and always good cheer.
As our LL.M. year flew by, we soon found ourselves speaking a common language—that of life-long friends1 who had shared a life together, even if only for nine quick months. The breathtaking “diversity, ability, and commitment”2
of our class is matched only by our amazing unity. We showed that in
how we engaged and contributed to the school and our fellow students.
Whether it was responding to opportunities to help in fund drives for
earthquake and storm victims from halfway around the world;
participating in “Around the World” events to benefit Alex Blasczuk;
filling up Facebook walls with birthday greetings or congratulatory
messages for the many LL.M. babies;3 competing in moot
courts; discussing a range of issues such as global hunger and its
causes or the legality of targeted killings from drone attacks; or even
to standing here, on this stage today—we carried each other. And in all
these times, we proudly carried one identity—Columbia LL.M. Class of 2012.
As that story ends today, another begins.
As we leave Columbia as LL.M.s, we are confronted with the consequences
of that identity: What does an LL.M. degree mean “outside of a seminar
room”?
I don’t have a complete answer to that; I
suspect you also don’t. What I do know is this: A Columbia LL.M. degree
means nothing if receiving it is the end of it.
In Professor Bobbitt’s Terror and Consent
class last fall, I realized that it is perfectly acceptable to not know
the answers—many of us didn’t—but it is absolutely inexcusable to not
ask questions. This spring, I marveled at Professor Monaghan’s curiosity
for “questions . . . discussed only in seminar rooms” and his passion
for dissecting old and new cases, and I realized that curiosity and
passion defy age and station, and that it is that curiosity and passion
that spell the difference between an LL.M. degree that simply hangs on a
wall and one that is lived out fully.
It is the curiosity and courage to ask
questions, and the passion and determination to find answers,that make
our degrees meaningful. The “asking” leads to “acting,” and it is in the
process of “asking and acting” that our LL.M.s take on flesh and
muscle, blood and bone.
But “flesh and muscle, blood and bone” mean nothing if there is no soul, no spirit.
The words etched across Kent Hall, the former site of the Law School—Ius est Ars Boni et Aequi
(“Law is the science of the good and the just”)—remind us that if
“asking and acting” are flesh and muscle, blood and bone, then “being
good and doing justice” are soul and spirit.
The challenge to us, as Columbia’s newest LL.M.s, is to continue asking and acting, confronting and challenging, being good and being just, doing good and working justice in whatever field we find ourselves. There is no other way to live out our identity as Columbia LL.M.s.
Allow me to end on a personal note by
thanking two of the best teachers I have ever had: My parents, Jess and
Juliet, who are here today. They taught me how it is to be good and to
be just through their example of a love freely given and a life well
lived. I am so proud to carry your name.
Congratulations, Class of 2012, and, as we say in the Philippines, Mabuhay tayong lahat! (“May we all live fully!”)
* Delivered on May 17, 2012, during the Law School graduation ceremony.
1 A description suggested by Saeher Qureshi LL.M. ’12.
2 The description comes from Michael Teichman LL.M. ’12 in his email to me of April 17, 2012.
3 Thank you to Alejandro Manayalle LL.M. ’12, for the
reminder that there were those who finished their LL.M. while taking
care of babies; as he puts it, “double work, double happiness.”
