In Review

Arthur Miller ’56, ’08 (Honorary) describes his undergraduate self as a “shrinking violet, sort of a social misfit.”

He hasn’t done much shrinking in a while. A professor of law for 55 years, Miller has argued several times before the United States Supreme Court, as well as in every U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. For two decades, he was the on-air legal editor for ABC’s Good Morning America and for nearly a decade hosted Miller’s Court, a mock-trial program.

“My whole life is speech,” he says.

He gives the credit to his time on Rochester’s debate team. “It was transformative,” he says. “It changed my life.” From an introvert, he became someone “having at least the capacity to be extroverted in the context of debate.”

It was Martin Messinger ’49 who helped him discover “this other personality.”

Messinger himself took up debate in an effort to aid friend Clark Barrett ’50.

Barrett’s father was a prominent attorney in Buffalo, Messinger remembers, and he wanted his son to follow him into practicing law.

“But Clark had a stutter, and he came to me and said, ‘I have to learn to deal with my stutter—and if we had a debate team, I could get the practice I need.’ ”

And so they revived Rochester’s team—and sparked Messinger’s interest in debating. It’s never waned.

After Messinger graduated and began work at Merrill Lynch, he came back to campus as the debate coach. Miller was one of his first two debaters.

Today, Messinger and Miller are still building the program, through a fund that Messinger created and Miller has since matched. The fund now stands at $1.5 million.

In addition to debate, Messinger, a life trustee, has supported programs and initiatives across the University. Miller, who holds the title of University Professor at New York University School of Law, annually hosts a public affairs forum called “Miller’s Court” during Meliora Weekend. He also established an endowed professorship in history.

Barrett died in 2004.

As a coach Messinger emphasized that the team needed to be competitive, but still open to everyone. He worked with a wide cross-section of students, representing diverse personalities and ambitions. But they found commonality in debate: “We were filling needs in a lot of different ways,” he says.

The team has stayed true to its roots, Messinger says, and he takes particular satisfaction today in the large number of international students who are involved.

“Language is not a barrier when you make it not a barrier,” he says.

Skillful speaking is an inner strength to be marshalled and used “in whatever setting you’re in,” says Miller. Debaters learn to organize their thoughts, present them persuasively, and be unafraid to do so in a public arena. “It’s recognizing there’s something in being two people, a private person and a public person,” he says.

But debate teaches more than just speaking. To respond effectively to another’s argument requires absorbing it and using it in later portions of the dialogue.

“That’s true of teaching, and appellate advocacy, and it’s sure as hell true of debate,” says Miller. “You’ve got to learn to speak, but you’ve also got to be able to listen.”

—Kathleen McGarvey