Robert Flanders '71, adjunct assistant professor of public policy and a former Rhode Island Supreme Court justice, may soon be headed to the federal bench.
Flanders - who currently teaches PP 70, Sec. 4: "Issues Facing Legal Policy" - has been recommended for nomination to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals by Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75, R-R.I., who by tradition names a nominee to President George W. Bush for his formal nomination. If confirmed, Flanders would take the place of retiring Judge Bruce Selya.
"Justice Flanders is a man of superb intellect, who understands the complexities of the law," Chafee said in a March 17 press release when he announced he was recommending Flanders. "His integrity is unquestioned, and I have great respect for his professional experience."
Flanders - who stepped down from the state Supreme Court in 2004 and is currently a lawyer with local firm Hinckley Allen & Snyder - was a football recruit at Brown and also played for the baseball team before graduating with a degree in English. After Brown, Flanders was simultaneously accepted to Harvard Law School and drafted by the Detroit Tigers.
"Instead of taking a law job during the summers while I was going to law school, I played baseball in the Tigers' minor league system," Flanders told The Herald.
Flanders said participating in athletics as an undergraduate enhanced his education.
"I think one of the great things that athletics teaches you is how to deal with and manage failure, because every athlete fails, and repeatedly fails, to do what he or she would like to be able to do," he said. "If you think about it, the best hitter in baseball only succeeds one out of three times." Flanders continues to serve on the Advisory Council on Athletics at Brown.
A native of New York, Flanders cited Brown as the main reason he settled in Rhode Island over 30 years ago. "I thought it couldn't be too bad to be a Brown graduate in a state as small as Rhode Island, and what I liked about Rhode Island was that it was a place where one person, I felt, could make a difference," he said.
Flanders spoke warmly of his time at Brown, but he said the years were tempestuous. It was "a turbulent time to be a student," he said, because of the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the United States' invasion of Cambodia. At Brown, protests against racial discrimination and the war coincided with the adoption of the student-designed New Curriculum and co-ed residence halls.
"Campuses across the country were in turmoil," he said. He recalled baseball games and exams being cancelled due to protests, sit-ins and boycotts. "There was a lot of tension between the administration and the student body, between the faculty and the administration," he said. "It just seemed like the whole campus was boiling for at least two of the years that I was there."
But the activism prevalent on Brown's campus was not a major factor in Flanders' decision to attend law school, he said. Flanders was married a week before his graduation from Brown, and "I didn't know what I wanted to do except to play baseball, knowing that I wouldn't be able to do that forever," he said. "So I said, 'Well, maybe I'll apply to law school.'"
Flanders received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1974 and went on to begin practicing in New York City.
Currently, Flanders is chair of the Voter Initiative Alliance, which is working to bring voter-initiated ballot referendums to Rhode Island.
Flanders said the movement is important because it "would allow the people to have their voice heard when representative democracy, for whatever reason, fails to be responsive to those interests."
If Bush agrees with Chafee's recommendation, he will officially nominate Flanders to the 1st Circuit Court. Flanders will then face confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee before he is officially appointed to the bench.
Flander's nomination has garnered praise from Democrats as well as Republicans.
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch '87, a Democrat, praised Chafee's recommendation. "With his independent voice, Judge Flanders will be a welcome addition to the Federal Court," he said in a written statement. "I hope that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and ultimately, the full Senate, approve and confirm his nomination to the bench."
