NATHAN ANCHETA

Scene Editor

“To tell you the truth, I don’t like after dinner speeches. I think it’s a barbarous institution.”

These were the opening words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when he delivered the keynote address to the Creighton University School of Law at the annual school dinner on Nov. 20.

Justice Scalia spoke on his position of “originalism” or that the Constitution has a fixed an original meaning when it was written.

The 35 minute speech included personal anecdotes and humorous stories, but much of the talk was based on Scalia’s argument for originalism.

He described it as an “orthodox position.”

“[Originalism] was a rock as to which society was anchored.”

He referred to the recent decision by the court confirming the right to burn the U.S. flag.

“I was the 5th vote in the flag burning case because that was my understanding of the original meaning of the Constitution. You have a right to criticize the government,” Scalia said.

He joked that people come up to him and ask when he decided to become an originalist.

“They would ask me ‘When did you start to eat human flesh?'” He joked.

He criticized the opposing view that the constitution is a living document.

“Which means it changes and eats whatever the courts today say it means.”

Scalia ended his speech with a plea for citizens to get involved.

“Instead of having the people write the new Constitution, we let Yale Law School graduates do it. My God. I prefer the former.”

Around 700 law students, faculty and alumni attended the dinner, which was held at the Peter Kiewit Ballroom in Qwest Center Omaha.

Students discerned Justice Scalia’s message carefully.

“My first reaction was to meet Justice Scalia’s notion of the ‘originalist’ with opposition, based on the fact that he is anything but progressive in his interpretations of the Constitution, and that is the exact goal of an originalist,” 2nd year Law student Daniel Ramirez said.

“At the time of the ratification, women, non-white groups, the poor, and millions of other neglected citizens were not included n the freedoms protected in our amended Constitution today.

“But, as he explained his reasoning on making a consistently ultra restrictive and conservative interpretations of the Constitution as applied to 2009, I do understand the need for the Framers’ intent to restrict the aggrandizement of power from going to the President or Congress,” Ramirez added.