Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye Addresses Graduates
Graduates are “inheriting three centuries of unfinished challenges, which are morphing into modern-day, contemporary challenges,” said Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye during her speech at the 2015 Santa Clara Law commencement ceremony. Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th chief justice of the State of California. Her responsibilities include serving as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, chair of the Judicial Council, and chair of the Commission on Judicial Appointments.
“You have approximately 50 privileged years to go hard, and bend the arc of justice,” she admonished graduates. During this time, she said, “bring a compass, and that the north on that compass be the rule of law. And the other points on that compass be your values.”
In her remarks, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye detailed some of the challenges new law graduates face as they enter the world: 19th century slavery, manifested today in human sex trafficking; 20th century civil rights battles, manifested today in various issues and a “rapidly deteriorating middle class,” and the 21st century problems of social justice, privacy and equal rights, including the fact that “women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work.”
To combat these challenges and be a force for good, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye encouraged graduates to make time to provide legal aid for low-income people. 90 percent of California litigants in housing and family law are represented, she said, and there are only 1,000 lawyers out of the state’s 165,000 who offer pro-bono legal aid to these individuals.
Cantil-Sakauye received an honorary Doctor of Law degree at the event. She was honored earlier in the year by Santa Clara University School of Law for her ongoing efforts in advocating for the human and civil rights of minorities throughout California, including overseeing a pilot Domestic Violence Home Court, and as a board member of My Sister’s House, a domestic violence safe house for Asian and Pacific Islander women and children.
