May 11, 2005
Jamestown, NY -- Earl E. Pollock, Law Clerk to Chief Justices Fred Vinson and Earl Warren, U.S. Supreme Court (1953-55), will return to Jamestown as part of the Jackson Centerís Brown v. Board II 50th anniversary celebration.
A Law Clerks' Roundtable featuring Pollock and others is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 18, at the Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Chautauqua Institution. The event is free and open to the public, thanks to the sponsorships of Allied Fire Protection Systems, Inc.; Chautauqua Institution; County of Chautauqua Industrial Development Agency; the Cummins Foundation of Cummins, Inc.; HSBC Bank, USA, N.A.; Phillips Lytle LLC; and the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Pollock was present for last yearís Roundtable at the Jackson Center as the discussion focused on the Supreme Courtís 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which held that ìin the field of Education, the doctrine of ëseparate but equalí has no place.î
While the Court held that segregated schools were unconstitutional, the remedy remained undefined by the Court and the parties were ordered to re-argue the case. Gregory L. Peterson, President of the Jackson Center said, "As we pick up the discussion in this year's Roundtable on May 18, Earl Pollock brings keen insight as to what was being talked about at the highest level of the Court during this next phase of Brown."
Regarding his role on the Court and of the Courtís desegregation order, Earl Pollock said "I donít think I articulated it in my mind at the time, as I do now, that it was the most important opinion in the history of the Supreme Court. What we had in this country were almost like two separate nations, compelled by law. That was the real evil, that we had segregation compelled by state law." As clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren, Pollock worked on the draft opinion that paved the way for a unanimous decision by the Court.
Earl E. Pollock, a native of Sioux City, Iowa, is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (1948) and the Northwestern University School of Law (1953). He became a law clerk to Chief Justice of the United States Fred M. Vinson in the summer of 1953 and, following the Chief Justiceís sudden death that September, a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren for the Supreme Courtís October Terms 1953 and 1954.
Pollock subsequently was an attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and then an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. In 1959, he returned to Chicago to become a partner in the law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal and from 1967 to 1990, was a member of its executive committee. He headed the firmís antitrust department, wrote and lectured extensively on antitrust topics and from 1979 to 1980, was Chairman of the American Bar Associationís Section of Antitrust Law.
He served as President of the Northwestern Law Alumni Association and as a trustee of Loyola University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He now resides in Sarasota, Florida, with his wife Betty, and is the President of the Florida West Coast Symphony.
Other clerks featured in the Roundtable on May 18 will be Gordon Davidson; Daniel Meador and E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr. John Q. Barrett, St. Johnís University Law Professor and Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow at the Jackson Center, will moderate the panel.
Reservations still may be made for the 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 18, dinner at the Athenaeum Hotel featuring William T. Coleman, Jr., one of the volunteer NAACP attorneys who helped mastermind the Brown v. Board of Education cases. Tickets are $50 per person and may be obtained or reserved by calling the Jackson Center at (716)483-6646.
Additional information can be obtained by calling the Jackson Center at 483-6646 or by visiting the Centerís Web Site, www.roberthjackson.org.