About Byron White
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White (June 8, 1917 – April 15, 2002) was an American lawyer and professional football halfback who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1962 to 1993. At the time of his retirement, he was the Supreme Court's only sitting justice appointed by a Democrat and the last-living member of the progressive Warren Court. Born and raised in a small homestead in Wellington, Colorado, White distinguished himself as a student athlete who came from a background of poor farmhands to become a consensus All-American halfback for the Colorado Buffaloes. After being the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in 1937, he was selected in the 1938 NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates for the National Football League (NFL). He led the league in rushing yards during his rookie season. White graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder as class valedictorian, attaining a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. After World War II forced him to return to the United States, he matriculated at Yale Law School, played for the Detroit Lions in the 1940 and 1941 seasons while still enrolled, and served as an officer for the United States Navy in the Pacific Theatre. White graduated from law school with honors in 1946 and clerked for Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson. He eschewed work for a white-shoe firm and returned to Colorado in order to enter private practice in Denver as a transactional attorney. Minor work as the Colorado state chair of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign led to him being unexpectedly tapped in 1961 for a position as U.S. Deputy Attorney General. He was successfully nominated by Kennedy to the Supreme Court the next year, becoming the Court's first justice from Colorado. White espoused a pragmatic and non-doctrinaire judicial approach which strengthened the powers of the federal government, advocated for the desegregation of public schools, and upheld the use of affirmative action. Though expected to be a reliably liberal justice, he was by contrast a vociferous opponent of substantive due process, penning dissents in cases like Miranda v. Arizona and Roe v. Wade. White wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick (upholding the ability for states to restrict homosexual conduct) and dissented in Runyon v. McCrary (against the ability for the government to restrict racial discrimination in private schools) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Due to his unwillingness to consistently align with either the liberal or conservative blocs, White was largely oriented with the Court's ideological center. In 1935, Sam White was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. After news of his brother's success became a local sensation, White saw his brother as an inspiration and felt pressured to achieve the scholarship himself.
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