[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 57 (Monday, April 20, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S4438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. SCHOOL OF LAW

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on March 27 colleagues of Congressman 
Jimmy Duncan from the House of Representatives gathered in Knoxville to 
celebrate the naming of Lincoln Memorial University's John J. Duncan, 
Jr. School of Law.
  This is an appropriate honor both for Congressman Duncan and for the 
university.
  The proposed Duncan School of Law received Tennessee Board of Law 
Examiner approval last month. This allows its graduates to be eligible 
to sit for the bar exam in Tennessee.
  LMU has already submitted a letter of intent to pursue accreditation 
for the proposed law school. It hopes to begin admitting students and 
begin classes in August of this year. That first class will consist of 
approximately 75 part-time students. The full-time program will begin 
in fall 2010 and consist of another 125 students.
  Congressman Duncan earned his journalism degree at the University of 
Tennessee, Knoxville, and his law degree at George Washington 
University. He has served as Captain in the U.S. Army National Guard 
and practiced law in Knoxville.
  In 1981, when I was Governor of Tennessee, I appointed Jimmy Duncan 
as State trial judge. He served until 1988 and I was always proud of 
that appointment.
  It is especially appropriate to combine the names of President 
Lincoln and the Duncan family. President Lincoln proposed creating the 
university as a gesture to the mountain people who fought with the 
Union in the Civil War. The Duncans, like the Alexanders and many 
others, were early Scotch-Irish settlers who remained loyal Lincolnites 
even though the State of Tennessee seceded from the Union. So have been 
most of the people in the Second Congressional District that 
Congressman Duncan and his father have served. The district has elected 
only Republicans to the Congress since Abraham Lincoln was President.
  President Lincoln once said that education ``is the most important 
subject which we as a people can be engaged in.'' Naming Lincoln 
Memorial University's law school for Congressman John J. Duncan, Jr., 
unites two great traditions that will encourage educational excellence 
in our region.

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