Benjamin J. Cruz ’75

Attorney General on Guam’s Superior Court

Guam, says Benjamin J. Cruz ’75, “is a place where I can be myself.” That means, according to Cruz, being flamboyant and outrageous.

Benjamin Cruz was born in Guam but moved to California when he was 11. He grew up in Southern California and graduated from Claremont Men’s College a.k.a Claremont McKenna College in 1972 with a double major in political science and economics.

He always knew he would attend law school. “I have wanted to be a lawyer since I was a little boy. I used to skip piano lessons to run across the street to watch the court and the legislature in session. One day I was hit and then run over by a car as I darted across the street.”

At Santa Clara Law, Cruz was a regular at the tennis court, a spirited prankster (having streaked a class on the last day of school wearing only platform shoes—this was the ’70s!), and an out-of-the closet gay man. His joie de vivre did not, however, prevent him from absorbing the teachings of Santa Clara: he graduated in 1975 with a strong sense of community and a belief that he needed to engage in community service—a belief he developed from his experience at the Community Law Center.

He returned to Guam after graduation specifically thinking he’d spend a year performing community service and then return to the Bay Area. But even before his bar results were out, he was asked by Guam’s governor to serve as his legal counsel. He has lived on Guam ever since.

Being honest about his sexuality has not been easy career-wise. Cruz believes it cost him three attempts for a seat on the island’s senate. “I’ve had to work hard to prove that I have a brain as well as a swoosh,” says Cruz, who has been with his partner, Johnny Applegate, for 19 years.

From 1982 to 1984, Cruz worked to establish a supreme court in Guam as director of the Washington Liaison Office of the Governor of Guam. The Guam legislature had established a supreme court but the 9th Circuit had struck it down. Cruz succeeded in convincing the U.S. Congress to permit the Guam legislature to establish a high court.

Upon his return to Guam, Cruz was appointed a judge in Guam’s trial court, where he served 10 years assigned to Juvenile Court, an assignment most judges take on for only a year. “The kids and I really had a good rapport,” says Cruz. “A lot of the kids just needed an adult in their lives who cared.”

In 1997, Governor Carl C.T. Gutierrez appointed Cruz to Guam’s new supreme court. After ten years as a judge, his homosexuality was not an issue. He was unanimously confirmed by the six senators present at his confirmation hearing. More than 90 people gave testimony in support of him, and no one spoke in opposition to his nomination. Two years later, his colleagues on the bench elected him chief justice.

Now, Cruz has joined Gutierrez in his bid to be governor, with Cruz running for lieutenant governor.

If he wins, he may be the first governor or lieutenant governor in the U.S. and its territories to be openly gay. “Governors have been open about being gay when they depart from office,” says Cruz, referring to New Jersey’s governor’s recent tearful departure from office, “but not when they go in.”