Remembering Collins J. Seitz, Delaware’s greatest judge
Delaware honored the memory of the state’s second African-American judge recently by naming its Wilmington courthouse at 4th and King streets the Leonard L. Williams Justice Center. It reminded me that we should also pay tribute to the Delaware judge Collins Jacques Seitz, who helped make it possible for Williams to start on his own honored career as a judge and as a help to many Wilmingtonians.
Almost exactly 65 years ago Seitz as vice chancellor handed down the ruling that opened the then-all-white University of Delaware to black students. Williams was among the first African-American undergraduates.
Seitz is principally remembered as the judge who held that segregation in the schools of Hockessin and Claymont was an unconstitutional denial of equal rights. In ordering immediate integration, Seitz wrote that “to postpone such relief is to deny relief.”
The U. S. Supreme Court, in its landmark May 1954 Brown V. Board of Education decision, upheld Seitz’s reasoning that school segregation was inherently unequal. Seitz, who later became chief judge of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, was himself often mentioned as a potential appointee to the highest court.
Although Seitz never won that seat, Supreme Court Justice David Souter said, “If I live to be a very old man, I will boast that I once sat on the same bench as Judge Seitz.” And Justice William Brennan said Seitz had “richly earned his assured place in the pantheon judges of our time.”
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Seitz’s son, C. J. Seitz, sits on the Delaware Supreme Court, where his father also served. C. J. tells me that work has started on a biography of his father, something long overdue. While many tributes and documents have been published about Collins Seitz, they have largely appeared in prominent law reviews that are not read by the average Delawarean. In one such article Seitz was called “gracious and understanding, decent and clear-thinking, modest and unassuming.”
A comprehensive biography of his life, family, legal pioneering and work in the Delaware community is needed. It’s fitting that among those contributing to that effort was William Quillen, who died on Aug. 19. C. J. says many other contributors are continuing that work. Collins Seitz died in 1998 just weeks after Louis L. Redding, who had mentored Williams and worked with him to fight for equal opportunity
Collins Seitz once told me of seeing gross racial discrimination while he was in law school at the University of Virginia. It was to his undergraduate school, the University of Delaware, that the vice chancellor ordered the admission of 30 black students because at the time the only college, unaccredited and “grossly deficient,” open to blacks was Delaware State College. So controversial was that decision that the state Senate later barely confirmed his nomination by Gov. Elbert N. Carvel to be the chancellor. The vote came in the dead of night.
President Lyndon B. Johnson named Seitz to the federal circuit court, where he served as chief judge for 13 years. A successor as chief judge, Dolores K. Sloviter, cited among Seitz’s innovations the first court to use electronic mail, limiting oral arguments, writing readable opinions, insuring speedy trials, opening more judicial proceedings to the public, and assuring proper care for mentally retarded persons.
While this column memorializes Seitz, I would be remiss not to also to honor Bill Quillen. He served on all the state courts, perhaps the only Delaware judge to do so. He was first and foremost a proud Delawarean and New Castle resident. The December 2000 dedication of the state’s Public Archives was an achievement he could proudly point to from his service as secretary of state. He wrote the history of the Court of Chancery in which he stressed Seitz’s contribution, not just to the desegregation orders, but also to landmark corporate cases.
Harry Themal has written a News Journal column since 1989.