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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Supreme Court Justice Byron Raymond White
Byron Raymond White led an extraordinary American life. He was named an All-American athlete and Rhodes Scholar, earned a Bronze Star in World War II, played in the NFL and led the league in rushing, worked to defend civil rights as Deputy Attorney General, and served for 31 years as a Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.
"We're the only branch of government that explains itself in writing
every time it makes a decision."
Byron Raymond 'Whizzer' White
Born June 8, 1917, in Fort Collins, CO
Died April 15, 2002, in Denver, CO
Federal Judicial Service:
Supreme Court of the United States
Nominated by John F. Kennedy on April 3, 1962, to a seat vacated by Charles Evans Whittaker; Confirmed by the Senate on April 11, 1962, and received commission on April 12, 1962. Assumed senior status on June 28, 1993. Service terminated on April 15, 2002, due to death.
Education:
Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University
University of Colorado at Boulder, B.A., 1938
Yale Law School, LL.B., 1946
Professional Career:
Professional football player, Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Lions, 1938-1940
U.S. Navy, Naval Intelligence, 1942-1945
Law clerk, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, Supreme Court of the United States, 1946-1947
Private practice, Denver, Colorado, 1947-1961
Deputy U.S. attorney general, 1961-1962
Resolutions of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States
In Appreciation of the Man and of the Public Servant
Justice Byron R. White
November 18, 2002
The members of the Bar of the Supreme Court have met today to honor the memory of Byron R. White, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who died April 15, 2002, in Denver, Colorado, and to record their appreciation of the man and of the public servant.
When President John F. Kennedy nominated him to the Court, the President declared that Byron White had "excelled in everything he has attempted --in his academic life, in his military service, in his career before the bar, and in the federal government." "Few among us deserve such accolades," Justice Lewis F. Powell would later observe," but President Kennedy did not exaggerate Byron White's achievements."
Byron Raymond White was born June 8, 1917, in Fort Collins, Colorado, but grew up in the small town of Wellington eleven miles away. His father managed a lumberyard. Wellington's economy was dominated by sugar beets, a crop demanding constant attention and back-breaking work, and both White and his older brother, Clayton S. (Sam) White, worked beet fields after school and during the summer from the time they could wield a hoe. Winters were harsh, spring brought strong winds off the front range, and summers were hot and dry. Character was shaped in the relentless competition between the land and the elements: self-reliance was not an abstraction.
By graduating first in his class from the tiny local high school, like his brother before him, Byron White earned a full-tuition scholarship to the University of Colorado. There he was a star in three sports (football, basketball, baseball), president of the student body, a junior selection to Phi Beta Kappa, and, again like his brother before him, a Rhodes Scholar. His performance during his senior year is still statistically one of the most impressive in the history of intercollegiate football, capped by All-America honors and brilliant play in the second Cotton Bowl. So great was the press interest in the young scholar-athlete that the New York Basketball Writers' Association created the first National Invitational Basketball Tournament largely as a showcase for White and his teammates. White delayed his matriculation at Oxford to accept the highest salary ever offered to a player in the National Football League. Following the 1938 season, he spent two terms at Oxford studying law, but he returned home when World War II broke out in September 1939. He spent a year at Yale Law School, won the Cullen Prize for the highest grades in his first year, then took a leave of absence in each of the two succeeding fall terms to continue to play professional football, which financed his legal education, helped support the medical education of his older brother, and provided a retirement nest egg for his parents.
With the onset of World War II, White tried to enlist in the Marine Corps with the objective of becoming a fighter pilot, but he failed the colorblindness test and had to settle for Naval intelligence. He served with distinction, especially on Admiral Arleigh M. Burke's staff, and was awarded a Bronze Star. He provided intelligence analysis that was critical to the success of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, and Burke later wrote that White's performance when the U.S.S. Bunker Hill was burning at sea represented the epitome of courage, physical strength, and selflessness in a crisis. After the war, White returned to Yale, where he graduated first in his class and proceeded to a clerkship with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson during October Term 1946. The term included a number of watershed cases (1) that would serve, in ways he could not then imagine, as a precursor to future duty when he became the first former clerk to be appointed to the Court.
When the clerkship ended, White faced the choice of where to practice law. Many of his fellow clerks stayed in Washington, but the pull of home and family was too strong, and he returned to Colorado to practice in Denver. His marriage to Marion Lloyd Stearns, daughter of the President of the University of Colorado, on June 15, 1946, meant that all of his extended family were within a 50-mile radius of Denver, as were a wealth of friends and the favored pastimes of his youth, especially fly-fishing and hiking in the foothills. For more than a decade, White enjoyed a widely varied practice ranging from real estate, corporate work, antitrust, and labor law to tax and litigation, including complex antitrust cases and simple one-day trials. He represented large businesses, such as Boettcher & Company, the Denver National Bank, and the Ideal Cement Company, as well as small companies and individuals. He also devoted enormous amounts of time to community service, including the Social Science Foundation at Denver University, Boy Scouts of America, the Urban League, the Denver Welfare Council, the YMCA, the Denver and Colorado Bar Associations, and the Denver Chamber of Commerce, and to numerous charities, principally the United Fund, Camp Chief Ouray for Children, the Rhodes Trust, and Rose Memorial Hospital. A registered Democrat, I he declined constant invitations to stand for public office and confined his political work to the grass-roots level. He once confided to a friend that he thought he could get elected to office, "Once." Too committed to his convictions, often too stubborn to compromise, and too disinclined to accommodate the press, he knew he was better placed behind the scenes than capitalizing on his early fame.
1Adamson v. California , 332 U.S. 46 (1947); SEC v. Chenery Corp ., 332 U.S. 194 (1947); Harris v.United States , 331 U.S. 145 (1947); United States v. United Mine Workers , 330 U.S. 258 (1947);United Public Workers v. Mitchell , 330 U.S. 75 (1947); Everson v. Board of Education , 330 U.S. 1 (1947); Hickman v. Taylor , 329 U.S. 495 (1947); Louisiana ex rel Prancis v. Resweber , 329 U.S. 459 (1947); United States v. Ballard , 329 U.S. 187 (1946).
When Senator John F. Kennedy decided in 1959 to seek the Democratic nomination for President, his staff solicited White to manage the campaign in Colorado. The Senator was not well known in the West and his voting record on agricultural and reclamation issues did not endear him to those whose livelihoods depended on generous federal policies governing crop prices and water. White, who had known Kennedy first in England when Kennedy's father was Minister to the Court of St. James and then later when both were PT officers in the South Pacific, accepted the challenge and helped Kennedy make a respectable showing in the state party convention. At the national convention in Los Angeles, White became close to Robert F. Kennedy. When the Senator secured the nomination, White was named national chair of Citizens for Kennedy-Johnson. As a practical matter, the position provided Robert Kennedy with the daily opportunity to consult White for advice on campaign tactics and strategy as well as the welter of personnel judgments required by a national campaign.
After Senator Kennedy was elected, White was named Deputy Attorney General. His first task was to recruit the Assistant Attorneys General who would be the front-line officers in the Department of Justice. When White finished the task, Alexander Bickel said that "It was the most brilliantly staffed department we had seen in a long, long time" and that the quality of personnel bespoke a "vision of public service that would have done anyone proud." White also exercised unprecedented independence from Senatorial prerogative in approving United States Attorneys, and once they were in office he monitored their major cases more closely than any of his predecessors had. In addition to making staffing decisions, he was responsible for supervising the vetting of more than one hundred judges nominated during the administration's first year. He received national attention during the Freedom Riders Crisis in May of 1961, when he organized and directed an ad hoc contingent of heroic federal officers to protect Dr. Martin Luther King and his supporters who faced life-threatening hostility to their protests against racial segregation.
When Justice Charles Evans Whittaker retired a year later, Byron White became President Kennedy's first appointment to the Supreme Court on April 3, 1962. White served for more than 31 years; only eight justices have held longer tenures. He served with 20 justices, including three chief justices. During his career he wrote 1275 opinions: 495 opinions of the Court, 249 concurring opinions, and 572 dissents, including 218 dissenting from denials of petitions for certiorari. Imposing as they are, numbers are hardly the measure of the man, nor does the remarkable curriculum vitae capture either his character or his contribution to the nation.
Those of us who argued before him, representing all shades of opinion at the Bar, respected his impeccable preparation and acute interrogations. We realized that oral argument was not simply a tribute that tradition paid to due process but, at least for him, a means for clarifying his understanding of the case in all of its ramifications. Many of us feared his questions far more than the arguments of our adversaries. He quickly could call on his deep experience at the bar and on the bench to focus an argument or to expose an artful diversion. He cut to the heart of a case, but also sharply identified the consequences of a theory that was more convenient than durable. Charles Fried, who served as Solicitor General from 1985 to 1989, has written, "It is not possible to have seen Justice White in the courtroom, to have argued before him, without getting a sense of a strong intelligence. He knew the case. He had worked out the intricacies. ...He delighted in asking just the question that displayed a weakness the advocate was trying to skate over, or perhaps had not even noticed. 'Skewer' is the word that comes to mind."
Lawyers who refused to come face to face with what he viewed to be the pivotal issue in a case could be met with a withering stare or abrupt dismissal. Yet his questioning was never cruel or punitive. He expected the best presentation from the best advocates, and he manifested compassion for those who had been propelled by their cases from run-of-the-mine practice in local courts to the unfamiliar terrain of the highest court in the country. Some of us in this room recall the young advocate in her first, perhaps only, appearance here in which she nervously read a prepared argument. Interrupted from the bench with the comment that the Court had a "rule which frowned on reading oral arguments," Justice White gently intervened with the reassuring observation that the "Solicitor General does it all the time."
Justice Powell acknowledged what could appear to be impatience in Justice White's demeanor on the bench: "If he did not like a lawyer's argument, he often would swivel his chair around and would appear to lose interest in the argument. His recollection of detail, however, always made clear that he had been attentive, as he would remember specifics that other Justices overlooked." Those of us who have seen the back of Justice White's chair can take some comfort in that revelation, and it points to a substantial contribution that the justice made to the institution that we would not otherwise know. As the Chief Justice has borne witness: "Those of us who daily served with him likely have a greater appreciation for his contributions than can be obtained by simply reading his opinions or tallying his votes in cases decided during his tenure. Given the force of his powerful intellect, his breadth of experience, and his institutional memory, Justice White consistently played a major role in the Court's discussion of cases at its weekly conferences. His comments there reflected not only his meticulous preparation and rigorous understanding of the Court precedent bearing on the question, but also pithily expressed his sense of the practical effect of a given decision."
Whatever his influence in the conference room, it is by his opinions that he inevitably is most widely known and will be most remembered. The corpus of his work does not represent the exegesis of a theory or the creation of a jurisprudential monument. In the words of the Chief Justice, there is "no 'Byron R. White School of Jurisprudence.'" At his confirmation hearings, when he was asked to define the constitutional role of the Supreme Court, he replied simply: "To decide cases." For some, the response was a cryptic truism, but to those who watched and read his work over three decades, the statement was a credo. From beginning to end, he saw the appropriate limits of his position more readily than its dramatic possibilities.
He knew well that particular historical contingencies had placed him on the Court and that the institution was bigger than he. "We are a very small number for the freight we carry," he was fond of saying. His job, as he saw it, was to resolve disputes: to read the briefs, to question lawyers rigorously, to find the flaws in the general statements about the law, and to see, as fax as humanly possible, the consequences of each decision and its supporting rationales. "My guess," Charles Fried has written, "is that he came closer than most justices to trying to make sense out of each case, one at a time." Justice White's keen intelligence was largely focused on predicting, skeptically, the consequences for other applications of the rule, and the real- world effects of a Supreme Court judgment.
The habit of mind that invoked constant questioning and probing could, and did, produce reconsideration in the light of changes in other doctrinal areas or in the development of the law that vexes judges most, the law of unintended consequences. Although no member of the Court during his tenure was more committed to the doctrine of stare decisis, even with respect to decisions with which he initially disagreed --sometimes vehemently --Justice White never felt boxed into a precedential comer, even by his own opinions. "Doctrinal consistency just did not weigh heavily with him if it led to a conclusion that did not make sense," Charles Fried has written. "With no other justice would you get so little mileage from quoting his own words back to him."
When the dots of more than a thousand opinions are connected, patterns, remarkably free of ideological shading, unmistakably emerge. Two themes stand out in bold clarity: respect for the scope of Congressional power and skepticism over judicial creation of novel constitutional rights. Perhaps no justice in the second half of the twentieth century was more committed to a generous understanding of Article I than Justice White. Whether construing Congress's power under the Commerce Clause or measuring the scope of remedial power under the post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution, Justice White acknowledged what he viewed to be the necessary latitude owed to Congress to exercise power under a "constitution
intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently adapted to the various crises of human affairs.(2) Late in his career, he wrote that" The Constitution is not a deed setting forth the precise metes and bounds of its subject matter; rather, it is a document announcing fundamental principles in value-laden terms that leave ample scope for the exercise of normative judgment by those charged with interpreting and applying it.(3) The lesson, in his view, was one not only for the courts but also for the other branches of government enjoying constitutional power and obligations.
Justice White's views achieved their most powerful and passionate expression in the constitutional domain of separation of powers. When Congress attempted to develop new mechanisms for controlling administrative agencies that it had created, Justice White objected strenuously when the Court was unable to square the innovations with the metes and bounds of Article 1.(4) He argued powerfully in the Northern Pipeline case that "at this point in the history of constitutional law" the Court should not have" look[ ed] only to the constitutional text" to determine Congress' power "to create adjudicative institutions designed to carry out federal policy."(5) A year later, he defended the legislative veto as an "indispensable political invention that ...assures the accountability of independent regulatory agencies, and preserves Congress' power over lawmaking."(6) In these and other cases, he emphasized that the constitutional text could not be understood intelligently without regard to its own historical development and to a practical appreciation of the machinery of government created and developed under its authority. Whether based in the Necessary and Proper Clause or in the expansive view of congressional capacity recognized from the earliest days of the nation, new schemes of governing were no less legitimate or constitutionally inappropriate to Justice White than the mechanisms that had been bitterly contested but ultimately ratified under the New Deal. Justice White took a capacious view of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over state court decisions, and he was the leading authority on the scope of the Voting Rights Act, to which he applied a broad reading in service of access by minorities to the electoral process. Where Congress spoke clearly and within the canonical scope of its historic powers, his opinions provided muscular support for upholding Congress' actions. 2 M'Culloch v. Maryland , 4 Wheat. 316, 415 (1819).
3 Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists , 476 U.S. 747, 789 (1986) (White, J., dissenting).
4 INS v. Chadha , 462 U.S. 919 967-74 (1983) (White, J. dissenting). See also Buckley v. Valeo , 424 U.S. 1, 266 (1976) (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co ., 458 U.S. 50, 94 (1982) (White, J., dissenting); Bowshar v. Synar , 478 U.S. 714, 759 (1986) (White, J. dissenting).
5 458 U.S. at 94.
6 462 U.S. at 972-73.
"Judges have an exaggerated view of their role in our polity," Justice White has been quoted as saying. That is not to say that he was reluctant to exercise what he viewed to be his responsibility or that he doubted the capacity of courts to develop doctrine interstitially, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., famously said.(7) But Justice White was dubious at best when the courts were invited to create novel constitutional rights under the rubric of the Due Process Clauses. He did not subscribe to a formula packaged as "a living constitution," "original intent," "plain meaning," or some other catechism: "[The liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment] is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary imposition and purposeless restraints."(8) The continuum was not open-ended, however, and was restrained in his view by the constitutional architecture that places primacy in
democratically accountable bodies and correspondingly assigns a subsidiary role to courts: "That the Court has ample precedent for the creation of new constitutional rights should not lead it to repeat that process at will. The Judiciary, including this Court, is the most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or even the design of the Constitution. .Š [T]he Court should be extremely reluctant to breathe still further substantive content into the Due Process Clause so as to strike down legislation adopted by a State or city to promote its welfare. Whenever the judiciary does so, it unavoidably pre-empts for itself another part of the governance of the country without express constitutional authority."(9)
7 Southern Pacific v. Jensen , 244 U.S. 205, 221 (1917) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
8 Moore v. City of East Cleveland , 431 U.S. 494, 542-43 (1977) (White, J., dissenting), quoting Poe v. Ullman , 367 U.S. 497, 543 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting).
9 431 U.S. at 544.
Justice White's conception of his role was almost intuitive, bred in the bone rather than created or fully asserted. He believed in law, both as an authoritative expression of the social will through the legitimate organs of government and as central to the vitality of a free society. Unlike many in his era, he did not view the courts as first among equals in law-making: those directly responsible to the electorate, be they town councils or legislatures, bore the first burden and the ultimate responsibility for mediating the often conflicting desires of a community. Accordingly, the first obligation of courts was to facilitate those judgments and not to question them as a matter of habit, sentiment, or impulse. And in an age when cynicism toward government became endemic, Justice White believed in the good faith of police officers, school boards, local officials, juries, and administrators charged with a public trust. "To be sure," as Kate Stith-Cabranes has written, "the assumption was rebuttable; the confidence could be broken. But he never expected (or demanded) perfection, for he well understood that neither human beings nor any institutions they create can be flawless." Public officials, without exception, were accountable under law for transgressions, but they were allowed a practical discretion to perform their civic duties.
Now is neither the place nor the time for a comprehensive catalog or assessment of Justice White's specific contributions to the various fields that fall within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Suffice to say that he had a pl0found impact in a number of areas other than those already mentioned, including jurisdiction, criminal procedure, procedural due process, the First Amendment, labor law, antitrust, and federal pre-emption. From his earliest days on the Court, he also made himself expert in fields that were alien to his colleagues or with which they enjoyed little direct experience, such as water rights, Native American sovereignty, and boundary disputes. He was, in private life and in public service, a team player who incessantly sought opportunities to contribute to the institutions and enterprises to which he attached himself. He esteemed public service as a lawyer's highest calling and warmly encouraged clerks, students, and friends to contribute their talents and energies to the common good.
When he announced his retirement March 19, 1993, effective at the end of term, he was in many respects at the height of his powers and enjoying good health. He could have continued to serve for several more years. When suggestions were made that he might be planning to stay on the Court long enough to establish the record as the longest-sitting justice. Many of us suspected that his decision to retire might be accelerated so that no hint of vanity could cloud his continued service. Justice White was committed to both the integrity and the dignity of the Supreme Court and fastidiously avoided what he viewed as even the smallest potential blemish on the institution. Life-long friends marveled, for example, that he declined offers of lifts from airport to fishing camp, for fear that he could later be accused of accepting gratuities from potential litigants, even when the "potential litigants" were fully retired and disengaged from their businesses.
In a statement released on the day Justice White announced his retirement, he said in part: "It has been an interesting and exciting experience to serve on the Court. But after 31 years, Marion and I think that someone else should be permitted to have a like experience." No other member of the Court had ever mentioned a family member in making a retirement announcement, and the inclusion of Marion White was both deliberate and heartfelt. For a half-century, they were a devoted and energetic partnership, whether raising a family, traveling to circuit conferences and law school moot courts, or fly-fishing in their beloved Rockies. Both were deeply rooted in the rocky soil of the Colorado front range, and they treated both Washington and Denver as home. Neither distance nor time ever separated them from the intimacy of life-long friendships or family ties, especially with their children, Charles Byron (Barney) White and Nancy White Lippe, and six grandchildren, who remember him as "Grandpa Justice." Travels to public events were the only glimpses that the public enjoyed of what was otherwise an intensely private couple, aside from the odd sighting at a Kennedy Center or Wolf Trap concert or in the galleries of the art museums, especially the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery, that they both loved so well.
Justice White treasured his private life and guarded it with what to some was breathtaking verve. As a young man, he had been catapulted uncomfortably into the public eye primarily because of his athletic prowess. That experience, plus innate modesty and shyness, made him allergic to the transparent celebrity that became the norm for public figures during his times in government. Few public figures in recent memory have cared so little about their popularity or even the judgment of history. Service, for him, was its own reward. Justice White remained secure in the values that were forged early in life on the lonely high plains and confirmed as a young professional: He measured himself by his own extraordinary standards, filled each "unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run," and was satisfied that ultimate judgment lay beyond temporal realms. To those who were fortunate enough to penetrate the wall of separation between public and private, he was, in the words of someone who knew him for most of his life, "remarkably tender and instinctively generous but neither wished to acknowledge it or have it recognized." No account of the man is complete without acknowledging the countless acts of kindness and quiet compassion that touched so many, especially during times of personal crises, but were, by instinct and design, seen by so few.
We are assembled not to compromise a jealously guarded privacy but to celebrate a life dedicated to public service and the highest standards of integrity and performance. Those of us who knew him have not yet entirely reconciled our loss. We miss his generous sympathy and broad comprehension of the world, his indefatigable curiosity, his warmth, his wickedly dry sense of humor, and, for some of us lucky enough to know him well, his crushing handshake, which focused his strength, friendship, and intensity into one bracing moment. We are comforted with the thought that death takes a man but does not fully extinguish a life, that he lives on in his family, in his vast legion of close friends, in others whom he touched, and in everyone for whom he was a courageous public servant who never flinched when the stakes were the greatest.
WHEREFORE, IT IS RESOLVED, that we, the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, express our deep sense of loss upon the death of Justice Byron R. White, that we acknowledge our professional debt to him for his decades of extraordinary public service, and that we gratefully acknowledge his contributions to our profession, to the law, to the Court and to the nation; it is further
RESOLVED, that the Chairmen of our Committee on Resolutions be directed to present these resolutions to the Court with the prayer that they be embodied in its permanent records.
Respectfully submitted,
Rhesa H. Barksdale
Shirley M. Hufstedler
Bernard W. Bell
Allan Ides
Robert H. Bork
Gene W. Lafitte
Tom Campbell
Lance Liebman, Co- Chairman
Warren Christopher
James B. Loken
Raymond C. Clevenger III
Maureen E. Mahoney
Richard A. Danzig
Stephen R. McAllister
Drew S. DaysIII
Robert M. Morganthau
Miguel A. Estrada
Alan B. Morrison
Jerome B. FaIk, Jr.
William E. Nelson
David C. Frederick
Louis F. Oberdorfer
Charles Fried
Carter G. Phillips
William Geoghegan
Richard M. Schmidt, Ir.
Robert H. Harry
Benna R. Solomon
Michael E. Herz
John W. Spiegel
Donald W. Hoagland
Kenneth W. Starr
Dennis J. Hutchinson, Co-Chairman
Jonathan D. Varat
COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS
CU-Boulder Chancellor, President, Law School Dean Laud Scholar-Athlete Byron White
Officials at the University of Colorado at Boulder expressed sadness at the death of Byron R. White, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
CU-Boulder valedictorian and the school's first All-American football player.
"It was a privilege and pleasure for me to have known Justice Byron White," said CU-Boulder Chancellor Richard Byyny. "His tenure on the Supreme Court was distinguished, characterized by independent thinking and enormous integrity.
"Of all our alumni in the first half of the last century, he stands out and is a source of great pride. He exemplified the high achieving student who is also an outstanding varsity athlete. We are sorry to lose him and will always revere his memory," Byyny said.
"This is a very sad loss for the nation and for the state of Colorado," said CU President Elizabeth Hoffman. "Justice White was one of CU's most distinguished alumni, and his memory will always live on at the University of Colorado. His careers as a CU football player, a Supreme Court Justice and a passionate advocate for First Amendment rights exemplify the best of CU's long-standing culture of excellence."
White was the first Coloradoan appointed to be a Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy. He served for 31 years, before retiring in 1993.
"Justice White was excellent in everything he did, from the day he arrived at the University of Colorado as a freshman, to his death today," said Law Dean Harold Bruff. "He was a fine lawyer, a fine Justice and a fine man."
In 1937 White was selected a member of the All-American Football Team, after leading CU to its first-ever bowl appearance. In 1938 he played professional football with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and in 1940 and 1941 with the Detroit Lions. In 1954 he was named to the National Football Hall of Fame.
"I had the wonderful opportunity to personally present and induct Justice White as the first member of the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame," said CU Athletic Director Dick Tharp.
"He represented the epitome of the reason we have athletic programs at a major university; that is to allow a talented young person to learn how to achieve the highest levels of success, whether in athletics or serving our country and society in a capacity such as the Supreme Court. We will miss his presence, but at the University of Colorado we will always have a sense of his presence in our programs," Tharp said.
White graduated from CU-Boulder in 1938 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He was Rhodes scholar at Oxford University and attended Yale Law School.
In 1994 the Byron White United States Courthouse was dedicated in Denver. In 1990 the Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law was established at CU-Boulder with a gift from his longtime friend Ira C. Rothgerber.
White was married to Marion Stearns White, daughter of former CU president Robert Stearns.
Byron R. White
was the first inductee into the Buffs Hall of Fame.
"Whizzer" White's career highlights
By Camera staff report
April 28, 2003
Highlights in the career of Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White, the former University of Colorado football star and U.S. Supreme Court justice, who died on April 15, 2002 at the age of 84.
- First made a name for himself in college while playing for CU's undefeated 1937 football team. The first All-American at Colorado in any sport, he led the nation in rushing with a record-breaking total of 1,121 yards (in eight games), and amassed 122 points. Those marks, erased nationally only after colleges went to 10- and 11-game schedules, set CU records. He was known as a "60-minute performer," excelling on defense as well as offense.
- White led that 1937 team to Colorado's first-ever bowl appearance, facing Rice in the '38 Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day in Dallas. Though Rice won, 28-14, White left them talking. He threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Joe Antonio and then returned an interception 47 yards for a touchdown to put Colorado up 14-0 in the first quarter before the Owls battled back. He rushed 23 times for 54 yards in the game, and had 166 all-purpose yards including returns.
- White was also a .400 hitter on the baseball team, and a standout on CU's basketball squad that made the N.I.T. in 1938.
- Denver sports writer Leonard Kahn gave White's nickname to him. Kahn labeled White with this name because "he seemed to whiz by people."
- His off-the-field performances were just as impressive as the ones on it. In 186 hours of undergraduate work, White earned 180 hours of "A" credits and six hours of "B." He was the student body president, a Rhodes Scholar, and Phi Beta Kappa.
- Played professional football for the Pittsburgh Pirates (now known as the Steelers). White was Pittsburgh's first pick in 1938. He led the league in rushing with 567 yards in 1938, and was named All-Pro.
- White left professional football to attend post-graduate school at Oxford College in England. After Oxford, White played one more season of football with Detroit, and again led the league in rushing with 514 yards, and punt returns with 15. White was again named to the All-Pro team. In the off-season, White attended Yale Law School.
- During World War II, White was an officer in naval intelligence, serving most of his duty in the South Pacific. During his time of service, White earned a Bronze Star, and formed a friendship with John F. Kennedy.
- Following the war, White returned to Yale Law School where he graduated first in his class in 1946. After a successful career as a corporation lawyer, White entered the political sphere in 1960, heading a pre-convention Kennedy movement that helped the soon-to-be president win the state of Colorado. White later served as deputy attorney general under Kennedy.
- On March 30, 1962, White was appointed an associated justice of the U.S. Supreme Court at age 44. He served for 31 years, and retired in March 1993.
- White was the first athlete inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1965. He was also inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame, the GTE Academic Hall of Fame, and was selected to CU's Athletic Hall-of-Fame in 1998. White was a member of the 1940 NFL All-Decade team. White was selected to CU's All-Century Team in 1989, marking the school's first 100 years of football, and his football number, 24, was the first retired by the University.
- White still is the owner of 15 records listed in the CU football media guide. Two of his records, most points scored as well as most points accounted for in a single game, were bettered just last fall, when Chris Brown scored six touchdowns (36 points) in CU's 62-36 win over Nebraska. It is estimated that at one time or another he held four dozen of the school's football bests.
- CU records still held by White:
Longest punt -- 83 yards, vs. Missouri in Boulder, Oct. 2, 1937.
Average gain per rushing play, season, minimum 100 attempts -- 8.37 (134 for 1,121), 1937.
Most Rushing Touchdowns, Quarter (shared) -- 4, vs. Colorado Mines in Boulder, Oct. 30, 1937.
Most Rushing Touchdowns, Half (shared) -- 4, vs. Colorado Mines in Boulder, Oct. 30, 1937.
Most Punt Returns, Season -- 47, in 1937.
Most Punt Return Yards, Season -- 587, in 1937.
Highest Punt Return Average, Game (minimum 3 returns) -- 53.0 (3 for 159), vs. Utah in Boulder, Nov. 7, 1936.
Most Punts Returned For Touchdown, Game -- 2, vs. Utah, Nov. 7, 1936.
Most Punts, Game -- 14, vs. Missouri in Boulder, Oct. 2, 1937.
Most Punting Yards, Game -- 581, vs. Missouri in Boulder, Oct. 2, 1937.
Most Points Scored, Half -- 27, vs. Colorado Mines in Boulder, Oct. 30, 1937.
Most Points Scored, Season, By A Senior -- 122, in 1937.
Most Touchdowns, Quarter (shared) -- 4, vs. Colorado Mines in Boulder, Oct. 30,1937.
Most Touchdowns, Half (shared) -- 4, vs. Colorado Mines in Boulder, Oct. 30,1937.
More on Byron White
Remarks of the Chief Justice from the Bench on Justice Byron R. White
Supreme Court of the United States
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Medal History
