[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E11-E12]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO PROF. HAROLD NORRIS

                                 ______


                         HON. JOHN CONYERS, JR.

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 3, 1995

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in tribute to Prof. Harold 
Norris, a gifted attorney and profound humanitarian who imbued 
generations of law students with a love and a passion for justice. This 
fall, Professor Norris retired from the Detroit College of Law where he 
taught constitutional and criminal law for the past 35 years. Professor 
Norris is far more than just a teacher. He is a tireless crusader for 
human rights. He is blessed with the soul of a poet, the insight of a 
historian, the curiosity of a philosopher, and the courage of a 
warrior.
  Law students in his final constitutional law class presented him with 
a plaque on the Bill of Rights. That plaque illustrates his impact on 
them and on thousands of other young people. It reads in part:

       While the Bill of Rights grants assurance to the individual 
     of the preservation of liberty, it does not define the 
     liberty it promises . . . only in recent American history has 
     the Bill of Rights been used as a shield in the battle 
     against indignity, abuse, oppression, inequality, unfairness 
     and intrusion. And while the Bill of Rights is the 
     individual's shield against governmental abuse and power, 
     that shield is of little use without a hand to hold it high. 
     Throughout his life Professor Harold Norris has held that 
     shield and taught his students and others to do the same. He 
     has taught us that the Bill of Rights does not implement 
     itself, it is only by the conviction, courage and strength of 
     people who recognize its indispensable protections that the 
     true spirit of its contents are achieved.

  Born in Detroit, Harold Norris' early life was shaped by the Great 
Depression. He was keenly aware of the Depression's devastating impact 
on the lives of working-class people who desperately sought help and 
guidance from the Government. That experience helped crystalize his 
feelings about the importance of justice as a reality, not just a 
concept.
  Over the years, Professor Norris has engaged in ground-breaking work 
in the areas of civil and human rights. As a delegate to the Michigan 
Constitutional Convention of 1961, he served as vice-chair of the 
Committee on the Declaration of Rights, Suffrage, and Elections. He 
wrote numerous key provisions of the Michigan constitution of 1963, 
including provisions that prohibited racial and religious 
discrimination and provisions that created a right to appeal in a 
criminal case. He was coauthor of the provisions creating a civil 
rights commission.
  He is former chairman of the constitutional law round table of the 
Association of American Law Schools. He was counsel to the Committee on 
Constitutional Revision of the House of Representatives of the State of 
Michigan, and he has been a consultant to the Judiciary Committee of 
the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Professor Norris' passion for the law affected every aspect of his 
life. At his retirement party, Norris' son, Victor, a Detroit-area 
attorney, observed that the first gifts given to him and his sister, 
Barbara, by their father caused us to be the only kids on the block 
with their own individually framed copy of the Bill of Rights.
  Harold Norris received a bachelor of arts degree from the University 
of Michigan in 1939. Two years later, he earned a master's degree in 
economics, also from the University of Michigan. In 1942, he joined the 
Army Air Corps and attended the Harvard Business School program to 
train statistical control officers. He spent almost 3 years overseas 
before being discharged in 1946. When he returned home, he enrolled in 
Columbia University and earned his law degree in 2 years. He and his 
wife, Frances, had two children, Victor and Barbara, both born during 
the Columbia years.
  In 1948, Harold Norris was admitted to the Michigan bar. For the next 
13 years, he engaged in private practice. During that time, he became 
active in bar associations where, as he recalled in a 1991 magazine 
interview, ``I helped initiate and secure prepaid legal insurance, the 
principle of fair employment practice legislation, compulsory 
automobile liability insurance, and the inclusion of lawyers in the 
Social Security Act.'' Norris wrote the Michigan Automobile Liability 
Accident Claims Act.
  In addition to his private practice and his work with the bar 
associations, Harold Norris involved himself with the American Civil 
Liberties Union where, among other things, he represented teachers and 
students who were subpoenaed by the House Un-American Affairs 
Committee. He pushed for one-man, one-vote, and he spoke out on the 
need for fair and impartial evaluations of citizen complaints against 
the police.
  In 1961, a number of forces converged on Professor Norris and moved 
him toward the realization of one of his goals: to be a teacher. While 
serving as president of the ACLU's Detroit chapter, Norris met the late 
Charles King, deal of the Detroit College of Law, who asked him to join 
the faculty. in 1961 Norris became a professor at Detroit College of 
Law; that same year he was elected a delegate to the Michigan 
constitutional convention. In the classroom and in the political arena, 
he was able to expand his efforts to help this country live up to its 
promise of freedom and justice for its citizens.
  Despite Professor Norris' awesome accomplishments, he remains an 
unpretentious man who always makes time to talk to students and 
friends. He encourages open debate in his classes, and he considers it 
his mission to spark an unquenchable thirst for justice in his 
students.
  Professor Norris' passion for justice is a natural part of his 
lifelong search for balance and harmony in the universe. His talent as 
a writer and social commentator has won him praise in the literary 
field as well as in the legal field.

  As an author, Professor Norris' works include ``Mr. Justice Murphy 
and the Bill of Rights,'' published in 1965; ``Reflections on Law, 
Lawyers, and the Bill of Rights, a Collection of Writings 1944-1984,'' 
published in 1984 and ``Education for Popular Sovereignty Through 
Implementing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,'' published in 
1991. Included among the collected writings found in ``Education for 
Popular Sovereignty Through Implementing the Constitution and the Bill 
of Rights,'' is ``Due Process and the Rule of Law: Earning Citizen 
Cooperation with Police.'' Presented at a public meeting in Detroit, 
the speech is as relevant today as it was when Professor Norris gave it 
in 1961. Detroit police were engaged in a unlawful crackdown on African 
American citizens. Some 1,500 dragnet arrests resulted in only 40 
warrants. Much of the community was outraged over the trampling of 
individual rights. Professor Norris went directly to the heart of the 
issue when he wrote:

       We believe that the public has a tremendous interest in law 
     enforcement, but it has an even greater long-range and 
     permanent interest in the rule of law. We hear of promoting 
     world peace through law. We need the rule of law to promote 
     the peace of the Detroit community. Justice through law is 
     the objective of government and law enforcement, not merely 
     the apprehension and prevention of crime. Inscribed upon the 
     portals of the building housing the United State Supreme 
     Court in Washington, are the words 

[[Page E12]]
     Equal Justice Under the Law . . . the watchwords of our constitutional 
     faith. In other words, it is the purpose of the Bill of 
     Rights and Due Process to make all citizens self-governing 
     and equally secure against any arbitrary and unlawful 
     intrusion, private or public. The Bill of Rights was born in 
     controversy and lives in controversy. Due Process of law is 
     to be observed in emergencies as well as in conditions of 
     safety.

  Harold Norris also is a sensitive poet whose work has been praised by 
Archibald MacLeish and Theodore H. White. White said Norris' poetry is 
``infused with an almost forgotten sense of love--love of country and 
of people, love of America's monuments and places, love of its future 
and heroes.''
  Professor Norris' poem, ``The Liberty Bell'' hangs in the lobby of 
the Detroit College of Law and in the public lobby of Philadelphia's 
Independence National Park's Administration Building, the home of the 
Liberty Bell.
  In a moving tribute to civil rights legend Rosa Parks, Norris wrote 
in part: ``I will walk. My will is responsible. I am this nation. This 
nation is what I do. It will not be done. Unless I do it. This nation 
is determination. This nation is conduct. Conduct with a free will. 
During his career, numerous groups have honored Professor Norris with 
awards and commendations. Included among these awards are the National 
Judge Finch Law Day Speech Award from the American Bar Association for 
his address on ``Law, the Language of Liberty,'' the ``Champion of 
Justice Award'' by the State Bar of Michigan and the ``Distinguished 
Warrior for Civil Rights Award'' by the Detroit Urban League.
  In 1987, the Michigan supreme court presented him with a citation for 
his vision, faith, and commitment that have inspired a lifetime of 
contributions to the jurisprudence of our State. In that citation, he 
was aptly described as a lawyer, educator, poet, and statesman.
  Professor Norris enjoyed a unique and beautiful relationship with his 
wife, Frances, whose death in 1990 ended a forty-seven year marriage.
  Their son, Victor, recently provided one of a most telling and 
insightful assessment of Professor Norris. Asked to describe his 
father, Victor said:
  ``Even if he wasn't my father, I would say that I have never known 
anyone who on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis feels so responsible 
to his country and to making it a better place to be.''
  When Professor Norris' name is mentioned, the most respected and 
successful lawyers and judges in Detroit say he shaped their law 
perspective about justice and led them to understand that the Bill of 
Rights is a living document that must be protected by those who 
practice both justice and the law.
  Harold Norris' presence has made this a better, stronger, and more 
decent Nation. During a teaching career that spanned four decades, he 
touched the lives of thousands of lawyers who now carry on his mission 
of our Nation.
  One of Professor Norris' last acts at Detroit College of Law was to 
create and to help fund the Harold Norris Colloquium, which is an 
annual even that will explore key issues in the fields of 
constitutional law, civil rights, and civil liberties.
  Detroit, the State of Michigan, and the United States are deeply 
indebted to Professor Harold Norris--humanitarian, lawyer, teacher, and 
poet. Because of his appreciation and understanding of the living power 
of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, generations of citizens 
have been able to live with a greater measure of freedom, opportunity, 
and dignity. I am pleased that my family and his have been friends, 
neighbors, and leaders in helping define and resolve the issues that 
yet may make this form of government great.

                          ____________________