It seemed that everyone at the Yale Law School reunion Saturday was talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton running for president in 2016. Except Clinton herself.
She talked about children. Impoverished children in particular.
Clinton, 65, was in town to receive the law school’s highest award, the Award of Merit, the same award her husband Bill Clinton received in 1993, the year he became the 42nd President of the United States. It was alumni weekend at the law school, and Hillary Clinton’s 40th class reunion.
During an address at Woolsey Hall, she concentrated on the topic that guided her early law career and one to which she has returned at many points in her life: Children and the political and legal importance of taking care of them.
The only open reference to her possible candidacy in 2016 (she has said she will declare one way or the other in early 2014) came from Dean Robert Post. He described how she served as a U.S. senator from New York from 2001-09 and as secretary of state from 2009 to this year. Then he added: “When Secretary Clinton left the Obama administration earlier this year, certain pundits did speculate that she might sometime soon seek to add one last elusive line to her resume.” The audience applauded wildly. Clinton smiled.
“I’m very glad to say that with this award we can prove them right,” Post quipped.
Marcia Chambers Photo
Post (pictured with Clinton) also told the audience about an early childhood health and welfare initiative she has launched through the Clinton family foundation. “So what began 40 years ago when Hillary Clinton began working at the Yale Child Study Center and then with New Haven Legal Assistance Office, continues now,” Post said. Clinton then took up the theme.
“If you want to understand how economic dislocation of the past dozen years has affected American life, look at our children,” Clinton said in her address. “More than 16 million kids live in poverty today, the highest percentage since the early 1990s. Nearly half of all food-stamp recipients are children, nearly 22 million of them. And yet the over all poverty rate in New Haven is just over 25 percent … For children it is nearly 38 percent. And in Hartford it is more like 50 percent.
“Think about that for a moment. Connecticut is one of our wealthiest states and more than half the children in its capital live in poverty.”
“If you even want to understand the human costs of political brinkmanship and gridlock in Washington, look at the children,” she said referring to the federal government shutdown. “ Because of the shutdown, nearly 9 million women and children will soon be unable to buy healthy food and feeding formula. Already 19,000 children cannot attend Head Start.” (Click on the video to watch the event; you’ll need to forward it a bit.)
Before she took to the stage the big question, besides whether she will run for president, was: “Is Bill here?” Officials smiled but said nothing.
But a few minutes before Hillary’s ceremony got underway, Bill Clinton slipped into Woolsey Hall; the crowd exploded when he came into view. He later took his seat next to Peter Salovey, Yale University’s new president.
The Clintons, both graduates of the YLS Class of 1973, were now back to the place where they met more than 40 years ago. She noted that when she arrived at Yale Law School in 1969 there were 27 women out of 235 law students.She spoke of the turmoil at Yale during the Vietnam War, of the Black Panther trial, of “a tumultuous time in the United States, New Haven and Yale.” She also recalled the steadying influences at the time. “Dean Louis Pollak urged us to work on student patrols after the international law library was set on fire. And I remember the bucket brigade, trying to save those priceless materials.”
Marcia Chambers Photo
For both Clintons, the return to Yale and to New Haven meant reuniting with some of the faculty and former administrators they knew when they were students. After her talk, Hillary Clinton was escorted off the stage and Bill Clinton was mobbed by those seeking to take his photo or shake his hand. Secret Service agents surrounded him. It took him nearly 20 minutes to walk a few feet in the direction of a door. He met up with Yale classmate U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and said hello to Edward Kennedy, Jr. (pictured)
Marcia Chambers Photo
Afterwards the Clintons went to a reception attended by faculty, including former Law School Dean Harold Koh, who served under Hillary Clinton’ at the State Department; and former Dean Guido Calabresi, (pictured) who currently sits as a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals and members of the class of 1973.
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