Judge, U.S. senator to receive Jefferson awards

By Robert Brickhouse

A federal appeals court judge known for promoting excellence in the legal profession and a U.S. senator who has been a lifelong advocate of preserving America's architectural heritage will be honored at the University on April 13, Thomas Jefferson's birthday.

Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, a widely respected jurist, scholar and former dean of the Yale Law School, will receive the 24th Thomas Jefferson Medal in Law. U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who has played a key role in saving and restoring many historic-landmark properties, will receive the 35th Jefferson Medal in Architecture.

The annual awards are the highest outside honors offered by U.Va., which grants no honorary degrees. The awards, given in two fields that deeply interested Jefferson, are sponsored jointly by U.Va. and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which manages Monticello. Calabresi and Moynihan will be honored at a private luncheon in the Rotunda and will make public talks on April 13.

Calabresi, who was born in Italy and whose family fled fascism in 1939 to settle in the U.S., earned degrees in economics and, later, law at Yale. He studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black before returning to Yale as one of its youngest law professors ever.

Calabresi developed a national reputation as a legal scholar, with such influential books as The Cost of Accidents: A Legal and Economic Analysis and A Common Law for the Age of Statutes. He was appointed dean of Yale Law School in 1985.

In 1994 President Clinton named Calabresi to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where he has continued to express as core values his concerns about discrimination and the need for decency.

"Judge Calabresi is one of the giants in American law of the last half century," said Law School dean Robert E. Scott. "A legendary teacher, preeminent legal scholar and academic leader, he has taken these enormous talents to the bench where he has served with distinction. ... Awarding Judge Calabresi the Jefferson Medal is a fitting tribute to a man who has dedicated his life to the Jeffersonian ideal of lawyer as public citizen."

Moynihan was a natural choice for the Jefferson Architecture Medal "because of his highly distinguished record in the area of urban design and architecture, from the development of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, to the development of the new Penn Station proposal in New York," said Architecture School dean Karen Van Lengen. "He is one of the few public figures in the United States who has truly fought for thoughtful design and planning in the public realm. As this is his last year as a senator, it is a timely moment to honor him."

Moynihan, who has served as senator from New York since 1976, has worked to help preserve landmark properties, including New York's Eighth Avenue Post Office and Union Station in Washington. He helped save the landmark U.S. Customs House in Manhattan by negotiating to have a branch of National Museum of the American Indian placed in the building.

In 1992 he received the Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture from the American Institute of Architects, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation's award in 1999.

He is a graduate of Tufts University and received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. A scholar who has been a leading political voice on many issues, from social policy to international relations, Moynihan held cabinet-level or other administrative posts under presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.