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RELEASE
For more information, please contact: Gwen
Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251. High-resolution electronic images of the sculpture shown below are available to the media.
Chicago-Kent unveils sculpture to celebrate more than 100 years of educating jurists
Iustitiam Servaverunt honors law school alumni who have served on state and federal courts
CHICAGO–September 18 , 2006 –- Iustitiam Servaverunt, an artistic tribute to Chicago-Kent College of Law’s century-old tradition of educating judges and to law school alumni who have served on state and federal courts, was unveiled this evening.
Iustitiam Servaverunt, which means “in the service of justice,” is a 11' x 24' stainless steel sculpture created by Midwest sculptor Lauren Gray that will be on permanent display in the west lobby of the law school at 565 West Adams Street in Chicago. The work contains the names of more than 200 Chicago-Kent alumni who have become judges, quotes on law and justice from a variety of historical and legal figures, and 68 expressions of legal importance translated into 31 languages, including Afrikaans, Yoruba, Braille and American Sign Language.
“Chicago-Kent has a distinguished history within the state and federal judiciary,” said Dean Harold J. Krent. “The law school was established in 1888 by two Illinois appellate court judges, Thomas A. Moran and Joseph M. Bailey, who later became chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. During its early years, Chicago-Kent became known as ‘the law school of judges’. By 1924, our alumni accounted for nearly half the state’s judges. Hundreds of Chicago-Kent graduates have been seated as judges in the years since.”
Dean Krent hopes that Iustitiam Servaverunt will serve as “a source of pride that will challenge our students to devote their careers to public service.”
Among the permanently etched names on panels within the sculpture are recently appointed Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke ('83); the late Abraham Lincoln Marovitz ('25), who served as U.S. District Court Senior Judge in Chicago; and Ilana Diamond Rovner ('66), the first woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The earliest alumnus included is Carl L. Rasch, an 1890 graduate who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana in 1910.
Iustitiam Servaverunt is, to some extent, a work-in-progress. Additional names will be etched onto panels as subsequent Chicago-Kent graduates become judges and as the names of more alumni-judges from the school’s early history become known.
One of the most striking aspects of Iustitiam Servaverunt is the multilingual display in six large panels of 68 translations of “truth,” “justice,” “liberty” and “rule of law,” concepts Dean Krent says form the essence of the legal system. These concepts are expressed in 31 languages, ranging from Afrikaans to Yoruba. A “reader rail” adjacent to the sculpture provides translations of the various languages, which include Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and the American Indian language of Ojibway, as well as Braille and American Sign Language.
Smaller sections of the sculpture include quotes from historic and legal figures such as Socrates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and U.S. Supreme Court justices Benjamin Cardozo, Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall. Jurist and legal scholar Chancellor James Kent, for whom the law school is named, also is quoted, as are alumni Marovitz and Rovner.
Iustitiam Servaverunt is the most recent addition to the IIT Downtown Campus’ diverse art environment, which includes works by sculptor Francie Hester, African-American artist Sam Gilliam, and the late Mexican-American artist and muralist Edward Arcenio Chavez.
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