Henry J. Abraham Lecture: Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

The 24th annual Henry J. Abraham Distinguished Lecture features former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Stephen Breyer. He will join Barbara Perry, the Miller Center’s Gerald L. Baliles Professor of Presidential Studies and co-director of the Presidential Oral History Program, and Risa Goluboff, former UVA Law School dean and the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, for a wide-ranging conversation on Justice Breyer’s new book, "Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism." Together they will discuss Justice Breyer’s judicial philosophy through an examination of some of the Court’s most historic cases.

The Abraham Distinguished Lecture honors renowned constitutional law scholar Henry J. Abraham (1921–2020), who was James Hart Professor of Government, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia.

The annual Abraham Lecture was established in 1999 by his students, colleagues, family, and friends to recognize Abraham’s profound contributions to judicial studies in political science. His life story of escaping the Nazis in 1937 at the age of 15, serving as a U.S. Army interpreter during WWII, and then devoting his life to the U.S. Constitution is as compelling as it is poignant. Previous lecturers have included Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Antonin Scalia, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Judge J. Michael Luttig, John Jeffries, Ted Olson, General William Suter, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Nadine Strossen, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Tinsley Yarbrough, Kenneth Feinberg, and journalists Linda Greenhouse, Joan Biskupic, Jan Crawford, Marcia Coyle, and Evan Thomas.

Host or Publisher Miller Center