Memorial ceremony honors fmr. trustee

University administrators and faculty members convened at the University Museum's Harrison Auditorium yesterday to celebrate the life and legacy of former University Trustee and judge Leon Higginbotham. Higginbotham died December 14 at the age of 70. He would have been 71 today. A renowned jurist, Higginbotham served as judge, chief judge and senior judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Philadelphia, from 1977 to 1993. His tenure as a University Trustee began in 1968. Higginbotham was also an adjunct member of the Sociology Department faculty and a senior lecturer in the Law School. "Judge Higginbotham was one of the great minds of our time and we have been diminished by his loss," University President Judith Rodin said. Approximately 350 people attended the memorial service yesterday afternoon, where Higginbotham's colleagues and friends provided readings and remarks and the local Evelyn Graves Ministries Choir sang hymns, according to University spokesperson Ken Wildes. Speakers at the service included Rodin, Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell, United Negro College Fund President William Gray, Chief Judge Edward Becker of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and Penn Law School Dean Colin Diver. Sociology Professor Renee Fox said Higginbotham "touched everybody intellectually and morally." "[Students] were touched by his brilliance and his message," she added. In addition to his legal work and teaching, Higginbotham was a champion for civil rights and affirmative action. He wrote two influential books on race and the American legal process, In the Matter of Color and Shades of Freedom. He received the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1995 for his contributions to society. University Board of Trustees Chairperson Roy Vagelos said that Higginbotham was "one of the great people of the [United States] and one of the great citizens at Penn." Vagelos noted that Higginbotham chaired several Trustee committees, taught classes at Penn and was a strong supporter of affirmative action programs. His death marks a "tremendous loss," Vagelos said. A graduate of Antioch College and Yale Law School, Higginbotham received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University in 1975. At the time of his death, he was head of the United States Commission on Civil Rights and a Jurisprudence professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.