Phillips, Dickson, Jr.

English

University of North Carolina School of Law

NORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEWVolume 67 | Number 5 Article 16-1-1989Memorial Service for Henry P. Brandis, Jr. February26, 1989Dickson Phillips Jr.Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclrPart of the Law CommonsThis Comments is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NorthCarolina Law Review by an authorized administrator of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contactlaw_repository@unc.edu.Recommended CitationDickson Phillips Jr., Memorial Service for Henry P. Brandis, Jr. February 26, 1989, 67 N.C. L. Rev. 1011 (1989).Available at: http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol67/iss5/1MEMORIAL SERVICE FORHENRY P. BRANDIS, JR.FEBRUARY 26, 1989DICKSON PHILLIPS, JR.It is fitting that we have gathered here in the heart of the campus of the firststate university to honor the memory of a good man, a noble son and servant ofthat university and of the state which founded and nurtured it.Henry Brandis was my teacher in law school, he brought me on its facultyand served as my dean until I succeeded him at the end of his great fifteen-yeartenure in that office. He then occupied that most sensitive position- predeces-sor to the dean in office-as member of the law faculty until his retirement.Those relationships and the friendship that grew and developed during theircourse provide many opportunities for fond remembrances and respectful tributeto a man for whom fondness and respect grew steadily over the years. I am surethat others will deal with specific aspects of his deanship, with his scholarlywork, with his public service during those years. I want to share some moregeneral reflections on two aspects of his life which-as I pondered my part heretoday-came to dominate my appreciation for his life-as I shared and exper-ienced it. These are his role in the life of the university at large-and his uniqueand powerful persona.First-the university man.Endowed with great powers of intellect-as formidable and wide-ranging asany I have directly encountered-equally great powers of heart and spirit, and asuperb legal education, Henry Brandis at the outset of his career could havechosen whatever stage, however wide, he wanted and excelled upon it. Thechoice came fairly quickly. He returned home from New York, where he'd con-cluded his legal studies at Columbia, to North Carolina and to Chapel Hill, hisundergraduate alma mater. For the rest of a long life he devoted his talentsexclusively to public service to the state of his birth and to the University. In sodoing, he joined that great company of fellow North Carolinians of extraordi-nary ability who from the University's founding have thought it an altogetherworthy use of their talents to commit them exclusively to her service, happilyeschewing what by the world's standards might be thought wider opportunities.In this great company of native sons and daughters-indispensable leaven in auniversity steadily becoming more national over the years-the Grahams andAycocks and others, many here today, too numerous to name-Henry Brandisstood out for upwards of fifty years as the powerful conscience of the Universityin times of trouble and as the constant exemplar, in good times and bad, ofsteady, selfeffacing devotion to duty as teacher, scholar and administrator. Hecame literally to be a rock upon which successive administrations knew theycould rely-and did rely-for hard, honest judgments, and for steadfast supportNORTH CAROLINA LAW REVIEWin maintaining unpopular positions that he knew were right. This of course isnot to suggest that he was ever simply a company man-my University right orwrong. More a Samuel or Nathan come to judgment on the powers that be, asnot a few officials both within and without the University came to know over theyears.Which brings me to the more sensitive personal side of things. Inevitably,there was complexity. The hallmark was of course the power and force of hispersonality. I never saw him-nor can I imagine him-intimidated by anotherperson. But I never saw him use another person to his personal advantage, noreven to secure some supposed advantage for a higher public interest.His convictions, inevitably, were deeply held and his confidence in thoseconvictions profound. In consequence, he did not always suffer fools gladly.Even less gladly-as those who were here on campus in the troubled late 60s andearly 70s may recall-did he suffer fools who suffered other fools gladly.But this is not to suggest that the essence was harsh and judgmental. Theessence was quite the opposite. It lay in the humane substance of the convic-tions he held so deeply-in the things he honored and those he abhorred. Hereat the core, he had it eternally right. He honored the great religious insights, thebonds of family and friendship, justice and mercy and the law as it embodiedthem, intellectual rigor and honesty, moral and ethical integrity, the life of theinquiring mind, the beauties and mystery of the natural order, the marvelousways of the educated person with language, the comical counterpoints to life'sharshness-life itself.He abhorred with a vengeance cant, hypocrisy, pomposity, false pride,mental sloppiness, injustice, prejudice, vulgarity in all its forms. He was notpassive in these convictions. He lived them.The state and the University he served are better for his service. We hisfriends are better for having had him as friend and counselor and model for thecivilized life. His life counted deeply for good in both its public and personalaspects.Vale, old friend.1012 [Vol. 67

Memorial Service for Henry P. Brandis, Jr. February 26, 1989

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Memorial Service for Henry P. Brandis, Jr. February 26, 1989

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