Commencement Speakers

Bronson James serves as an associate justice on the Oregon Supreme Court, and as an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, teaching Oregon Constitutional Law and Evidence. He is a passionate advocate for Oregon’s unique “first things first” approach, which focuses on interpreting the Oregon Constitution independently from the United States Constitution. This approach, he has said, “is responsible for Oregon’s independent protection of civil rights and liberties above the federal floor,” and helps Oregon weather “troublesome effects of shifts in the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the federal constitution.” Additionally, he has been vocal in rejecting the judicial philosophy of textualism, advocating instead for purposivism. As he has written, “interpretation begins, not with text, but with social background. It is imperative to first understand what prompted the legislature to action, and to interpret through that lens, wherever possible, the enacted statute in furtherance of the legislative purpose that prompted it. Purposivism is grounded in pragmatism and realism. In a search for statutory meaning, the purposivist approach recognizes that text is imperfect.”