José A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Portrait Dedication [85:02-90:03]

call me from time to time to complain that someone popular voices in one or another place on campus were being intimidated or silenced by elements of our local thought police. I am pleased to think that whatever complaints Ralph may have had about earlier times at Yale on my watch his complaints were always resolved to his complete satisfaction which is to say in defense of freedom of expression. Ralph Winter and John Newman are among our country's greatest judges. This is an overused expression among judges but of these two there can be no doubt they are among our country's greatest judges. I am honored by their friendship and humbled by their example. My induction here on a cold day in 1979 people refer to it as a cold day because indeed it was very cold and despite our efforts I mean Senator Rubikov commented on it and was shocked that we had taken such extraordinary measures in the aftermath of OPEC's strike as it were. And he thought that this was sort of a blow against the OPEC of some kind but everyone was shivering here. Aside from that and having nothing to do that was it was perfectly managed by the associate general counsel Linda Koch-Lorimer who thereafter proceeded to have a luminous career in university administration as president of Randolph-Making Women's College in Virginia and more recently as vice president and secretary of Yale University and it's a source of special pride to me that she's here with us today. Also president on that occasion 30 plus years ago as you heard was another associate general counsel Darcy Kay Robinson who would in time succeed me as general counsel of the university and would lend distinction to that position for more than a quarter of a century. Having hired Linda Larimer and Darcy Robinson as my deputies remains to this day my claim to fame at Yale and a source of personal satisfaction. Now Felix Lopez whom you've heard today he is a special friend and a former student he's an alumnus of the streets of Spanish Harlem he's a dropout of the famously tough machine and metal trades high school. I used to refer to him when I introduced him to people as a graduate of the machine and metal trades high school before I started to get myself worked up about the rest of his life. He pulled me aside once he said actually I'll say I dropped out of the machine and metal trades. In any event having dropped out of the machine and metal trades high school Felix went into the U.S. Army and to Warren Vietnam where he discovered an aptitude for East Asian languages that enabled him to resume his education at the University of Michigan followed by the Yale Law School. Felix and his Yale Law School classmate Sonia Sotomayor joined me in trying to fill an important gap in the historiography of our island homeland between college and law school I had taught history in San Juan and I remained an amateur historian of Puerto Rico. I had been struck by the fact that there was no serious scholarship that explained exactly how and why the Puerto Ricans had been collectively naturalized by act of Congress in 1917. Felix and Sonia were my partners in reconstructing that legislation legislation which was in my view the turning point in the history of our people. This was a voyage of discovery for the three of us and a voyage that was made all the better by Felix's worldliness, his wit, and his love of learning. He is still recommending books to me 30 years later for which I'm always grateful. I mentioned in passing he's been reading Herodot this recently. I know that Professor Kay will be pleased to know that. I owe more than I can say to Yale into his law school. I was admitted to Yale law school in 1961 in the years well before the revolution. In cultural terms the early 60s were still the 50s. Arrival here was a turning point in my life. I had been the beneficiary of the Western civilization core curriculum of Columbia College but I was still the somewhat parochial son of a Spanish speaking household from an island colony and a product of the public schools in New York cities out of burrows. Yale law school opened to me vistas that were simply unimaginable before. The paraphrase president Kennedy at the 1961 Yale commencement I had the best of all possible worlds, a Columbia College education and a Yale degree.