Supremely Influential: How The Man That Once Was Whizzer White Shaped My Career

While I love bringing Justice Byron R. White to life in this manner, I always feel rather ashamed at doing so. Ashamed, because I have the distinct feeling that White is sitting in the corner of the classroom politely trying not to roll his eyes in frustration that yet another person has capped off their description of his lifetime of accomplishments with reference to his athletic achievements. In 1935, a Denver Post journalist “saddled” the rising college football star White “with a name he did not seek, did not like, and could not shake.”1 Much to White’s dismay, “He graduated from Yale Law School; he served in the Navy in World War II; and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University . . .” Introducing my “law and courts” students to the extraordinary biography of Byron R. White usually begins with these observations. Although this summary of his accomplishments is traditionally prefaced with a statement saying that White had a “résumé you pretty much can’t beat,” I still have not captured my students’ attention. Yale Law seems several worlds away for them; World War II is ancient history; and they have no idea what a Rhodes Scholar is. So, I continue. “Deputy Attorney General during the presidency of John F. Kennedy; and then one of Kennedy’s appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1962, serving on that Court until 1993.” Some of the students are now impressed. Supremely Influential: How The Man That Once Was Whizzer White Shaped My Career