Class of 2018 commencement celebrates graduates, King Hall’s values

The UC Davis School of Law commencement, held May 19 at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, celebrated the Class of 2018 along with King Hall's dedication to diversity, social justice and community.

In a change from past ceremonies, the nearly 250 graduates were seated on stage instead of in the orchestra section. Friends and family members could see the graduates who were smiling and waving at the audience. Law school and campus leaders also shared the stage with the Class of 2018.

The keynote speaker, the Chief Justice of California, Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, emphasized her long history with the School of Law, from which she graduated, alongside her sister, Kim, in 1984. Had she not been speaking at the commencement, she would have been in the audience cheering on her niece, Kira Cohen ’18, Cantil-Sakauye said.

“I am proud Auntie Tani,” she said. Cantil-Sakauye, the daughter of farm workers, pointed out how remarkable it was to have three J.D. degrees in the family.

“I don’t keep score, but I am just going to say, three women from my family - a farmworker family - are lawyers out of UC Davis!” she said.

When she and her sister were in law school, there were slightly more female than male students, she said. But there was only “a small group of minority students, and we all knew each other.”

“I am proud to say as we fast-forward, UCD Law has really set the pace and is making history,” the Chief Justice continued. She cited the School of Law’s ranking among the top 10 most diverse law schools in the country, and commended its First Generation Advocates program for students who are the first in their families to attend college or professional school.

“These actions are to grow the law, to make it accessible,” the Chief Justice said. “To make it look like the people who the law governs.”

A desire to ensure equal access to justice motivated her 2017 open letter to the Trump administration expressing opposition to immigration enforcement agents apprehending people at California courthouses, she said.

“People were feeling disenfranchised from justice, and would not come to court” on their designated court dates, she said.

School of Law Dean Kevin R. Johnson, the event’s emcee, also referenced the shifting legal landscape under the Trump administration. King Hall students and faculty had responded swiftly and impressively to constitutional challenges, he said. Members of the Class of 2018 helped detainees when the travel ban went into effect in early 2017, and Professor Elizabeth Joh started a popular podcast called “What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law.”

UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May, who assumed his post last year, also was topical in his first commencement speech for the School of Law.

“Racial tensions are polarizing our country,” May said. “Our immigrant communities are under attack. Hate speech is no longer whispered in the shadows, but shouted out in public spaces.”

Graduates of King Hall, named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., are positioned to fight this tide, May said.

“With a role model like Dr. King, and the guidance of this school’s great and remarkably diverse faculty, the Class of 2018 is well equipped to do good in the world,” he said. “So, I look at you all in your caps and gowns, about to receive your well-earned law degrees and think, ‘How much the world needs you now.’”

Roza Patterson ’18, recipient of the Dean’s Merit Scholarship, California Bar Foundation Diversity Scholarship and Milton L. Schwartz/David F. Levi American Inn of Court Scholarship, was the student speaker. Professor David Horton spoke on behalf of the faculty.

Brittani Bowers Frink ’18, winner of the 2018 Law School Medal honoring the highest academic achievement among J.D. candidates, accepted her award on stage. Professors Clay Tanaka and Floyd Feeney acted as marshals, and Senior Assistant Dean Hollis Kulwin announced the graduates’ names.

The 50th commencement served as a kind of culmination of the law school’s 50th anniversary celebration three years ago.

“This year, we celebrate a half-century’s worth of graduates who possessed the energy, curiosity, and perseverance needed to graduate from King Hall, and to carry its principles into the world,” Johnson said.

Graduates like the Chief Justice, who in her keynote address spoke of meeting fellow UC Davis law alums in her travels up and down the state. All have benefited from the school’s “atmosphere of collegiality and warmth and inclusion,” she said.

“Every UCD grad I meet speaks affectionately and wistfully about their time here at the school.”