ĭouglas was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, participated on the debate team, and was elected as student body president in his final year. I saw cruelty and hardness, and my impulse was to be a force in other developments in the law. I worked among the very, very poor, the migrant laborers, the Chicanos and the I.W.W's who I saw being shot at by the police. He once said of his early interest in the law: Picking cherries, Douglas would say later, inspired him to a legal career. He worked at various jobs while attending school, including as a waiter and janitor during the school year, and at a cherry orchard in the summer. At Whitman, Douglas became a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was the valedictorian at Yakima High School and did well enough in school to earn a full academic scholarship to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. William, like the rest of the Douglas family, worked at odd jobs to earn extra money, and a college education appeared to be unaffordable. After moving the family from town to town in the West, his mother, with three young children, settled in Yakima, Washington. Douglas later claimed his mother had been left destitute. His father died in Portland, Oregon in 1904, when Douglas was six years old. His mother attributed his recovery to a miracle, telling Douglas that one day he would be President of the United States. Douglas said he suffered from an illness at age two that he described as polio, although a biographer reveals that it was intestinal colic. His family moved to California, and then to Cleveland, Washington. He was also known as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War and an ardent advocate of environmentalism.ĭouglas was born in 1898 in Maine Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota, the son of William Douglas, an itinerant Scottish Presbyterian minister from Pictou County, Nova Scotia, and his wife, Julia Bickford Fisk. He wrote notable concurring or dissenting opinions in cases such as Dennis v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966). He also wrote the Court's majority opinion in other major cases such as Skinner v. Connecticut which established the constitutional right to privacy, and was foundational to later cases such as Eisenstadt v. Douglas holds a number of records as a Supreme Court justice, including the most opinions.Īmong Douglas's notable opinions included Griswold v. Douglas served on the Court until his retirement in 1975, and was succeeded by John Paul Stevens. He was among those seriously considered for the 1944 Democratic vice presidential nomination and was subject to an unsuccessful draft movement prior to the 1948 U.S. After serving as the third chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Douglas was successfully nominated to the Supreme Court in 1939, succeeding Justice Louis Brandeis. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1925 and joined the Yale Law School faculty. In 1975, Time called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court." He is the longest-serving justice in history, with his term lasting 36 years and 211 days (1939–1975).Īfter an itinerant childhood, Douglas attended Whitman College on a scholarship. Roosevelt in 1939, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, becoming one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. Supreme Court's most liberal justice ever. William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was known for his strong progressive and civil libertarian views, and is often cited as the U.S.
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