John Sexton Interview (page: 2 / 6) Education & Law	Print Interview

What about teachers, as you were coming along? Are there particular teachers that stand out who really helped you get on your way?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sexton: Well, I think -- look, I was captured for teaching by teachers. There's this one spectacular man in my life named Charlie who -- I was formed at this Jesuit high school that hasn't existed since 1972, but each year a group of us get together. Now, this school has not graduated anybody in 33 years, but we have 600, 700, 800 men at a reunion every year to keep its spirit alive. And, you know, one of them still makes sweatshirts for us, and varsity jackets so we can give them to our kids. And at that high school -- now, this was Brooklyn Catholicism in the '50s, so Joseph McCarthy was an icon. My mother thought Joseph McCarthy was the fourth member of the trinity. But one of our English teachers at this high school was Daniel Berrigan. And people like Berrigan said to us, "It's okay to disagree with McCarthy. And it's okay to disagree with us. But you have to have a reason for your view." And this was a very dramatic thing to be said to a pre-conciliar Irish Catholic in Brooklyn. And they gave us this man -- there were 12 of us that were in an honors class, and we had this man Charlie -- and, as I remember it -- we had him every day, five days a week for three years for a course that was really just called "Charlie." And he started with the cave paintings of Altimara, and percussion music, and he worked his way through the centuries, right up to the 1950s, teaching us simultaneously history, music, art and literature -- in this highly mystical way. This was before anybody thought of the word "interdisciplinary," or ethnocentrism.

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Charlie always used to say, "Play another octave of the piano." That was his phrase. So if you haven't reached this note, reach out to it. He lived that with us. You know, his house was at 212 Lincoln Road. I still remember his phone number: Ingersoll 2-8054. And we were welcome in his house, which was about four blocks from the school. He had no family. And we were welcome there. But you had to read the extra book that he had posted at the teachers room. That was the price of admission. And you might fall into a conversation, when you walked through the door, on that book; or he might have some Verdi opera on that he was discussing; or one of the kids might have just said, "I've never had Chinese food," so he'd be piling into his car to go to Chinatown. And it was always play another -- and he would take kids -- I never did this with him because I was so focused on debate -- but he would take kids, literally, around the world. And even though he wasn't a priest, he always, in Europe, he always traveled with a Roman collar. He always said, "You never have to wait on a line for a museum or a restaurant if you wear a Roman collar. So that's what I did with my girls -- my high school girls. Every one of those girls saw the 48 lower states, because we would take six weeks in the summer and drive around. Every one of them went down into the Grand Canyon. I mean, I've been in the Grand Canyon 18 times. So, I realized I had to do that with my daughter, right? So I'm with Katie -- she was about 11, so this is about five years ago, and we're climbing the Pyramid of Teotihuacan.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Now, I got a great deal of credit, within legal education, for creating a paradigm shift in the way law is taught in the United States by starting and pressing at NYU something called "the Global Law School Initiative" -- which really kind of broke the boundaries of American kind of ethnocentrism about law. And there were a lot of things we did to implement that. So here I am climbing the Pyramid of Teotihuacan -- terrified, because I have a fear of heights, but I'm going to do this for my daughter. She's scampering up. And I hear Charlie's voice coming back to me, from 1958 -- very distinct memory of him -- we had read the Book of the Dead, he had the Pyramid of Giza on the wall -- and he says, "Boys -- " -- because we were all working-class kids, "Boys, you will never see these pyramids, because you can't drive to them. But there are pyramids south of here that you haven't heard of because the British did not rob them for their museums." And I said -- it was Charlie that first introduced me to ethnocentrism. And he really created the Global Law School Initiative. It wasn't me. It was just growing out -- and he was the one that impelled me into teaching. And when I started with the girls -- I mean, I worked with those kids a hundred hours a week, because I'd put them in a car on Thursday and we would drive off to wherever it was -- the tournament was -- that week, and we wouldn't be back 'til Sunday. And even as a sophomore, or junior or senior, as I was doing college, I was with them from three o'clock 'til ten o'clock every night, and then off on Thursday and back on Sunday. And then off for these six weeks. It was the center of my life -- which, of course, led to a terrible college record.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I mean, Fordham just gave me an honorary degree. Now, I have a Bachelor's and a Master's and a Ph.D. from Fordham. And I got up in front of the students and I said, "The first thing I urge all of you to do when you leave here today -- those of you especially with summas and magnas on your diplomas -- is leave here and as quickly as you can fail at something. Just so you'll understand -- " -- now this is the son of an alcoholic, of course, talking again. "But just so that you understand that there's life after failure." Now, I said, "There's no one in the audience with a grade point average as low as mine, because my grade point average was 2.1 when I graduated from Fordham." I said, "I don't regret what I did. I followed my passions. I took risks. I wouldn't trade what I did for a higher grade point average. But at least those of you that are sitting there with the 2.8s" -- because you can't get 2.1s anymore with grade inflation -- "or the 3.2s -- you know that there's life after failure. And you know that unless you try to take risks, you're not going to really play all the octaves of the piano." So, it was a dominating thing for me to do what Charlie did. And, it affected my life. I mean, it's the reason I got my doctorate. Father Tim Healey, who had recruited me for this honors program at Fordham, but who threw me out of it at the end of my freshman year because my grades were terrible, came up to me in 1963 when I was on the quadrangle. It's May. I'm limping to graduation. And Tim said, "You've been a big disappointment to us." And he said, "But the Vatican Council has happened, and it's going to be important for lay Catholics to understand other religions. And we're starting a Ph.D. program in religion. We'll give you a second chance. We'll give you a fellowship." So, I felt very honored, until I got there in the fall and saw there were only two of us in the program, and he was looking just for somebody that probably didn't have plans, and had spotted me on the quadrangle. So, that's why I got my Ph.D.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Because I knew if I went to law school, which I knew I wanted to do, that I would ruin it the way I had ruined college. So I kind of did my Ph.D. with my left hand, and then, to support myself, since I wasn't being paid for what I was doing with the girls, I started teaching college -- and then quickly became chairman of the religion department at this small college in Brooklyn.

What was your attraction to studying religion?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. John Sexton: Well, I think I'm a person who asks himself -- I mean, I think I live in a religious dimension. I think, you know, I take the notion of meaning in life and a transcendence seriously. I don't have a triumphal attitude, like -- my wife is Jewish, all my children and grandchildren are Jewish. But I do rejoice in any attempt -- whatever its cultural form -- at embracing the transcendent. So, I think it's an important subject.

[ Key to Success ] Vision

But, I'd be lying to you if I said that I'd planned to get my Ph.D. in religion and aspired to do it. Tim Healey stopped me and offered me a fellowship. And what I knew I wanted to do was continue to work with the girls.

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