Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to Address Law School Graduates Saturday; Former Congressman and Commerce Secretary is Member of SCU Board of Regents.

Education/Legal Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2001

Norman Y. Mineta, former Silicon Valley congressman and the only Democrat in President Bush's cabinet, will speak Saturday at the 2001 commencement ceremonies for the Santa Clara University School of Law.

At the 10:30 a.m. ceremonies in the Mission Gardens at the SCU campus, Mineta, a former San Jose mayor who also was President Clinton's last commerce secretary, will be given the University's Peter Burnett Award for Distinguished Public Service.

The law school this academic year awards 255 J.D. degrees and 19 L.L.M degrees. In addition, 48 of the law graduates are to receive certificates in high-tech law, 25 in public interest law and 11 in international law. Recipients of the L.L.M. degrees in U.S. law are foreign students from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, England, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, and Vietnam.

The 150th SCU undergraduate commencement will be June 16, and the graduate schools' commencement will be June 17, both at Buck Shaw Stadium.

Mineta, who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded an honorary doctorate in public service degree from SCU in 1989, when he spoke at undergraduate commencement.

He oversees an agency with approximately 100,000 employees and a $58.7 billion budget. Prior to joining President Bush's administration in January as secretary of transportation, Mineta served as secretary of commerce under President Clinton, becoming the first Asian-Pacific American to serve in the cabinet. Prior to joining the Commerce Department, he was a vice president at Lockheed Martin Corporation.

From 1975 to 1995 he served as a member of U.S. House of Representatives, representing the heart of California's Silicon Valley. He co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair.

Mineta served as chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee between 1992 and 1994, chaired the committee's aviation subcommittee between 1981 and 1988, and its Surface Transportation Subcommittee from 1989 to 1991. During his career in Congress he championed increases in investment for transportation infrastructure, and was a key author of the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, which shifted decisions on highway and mass transit planning to state and local governments. ISTEA led to major upsurges in mass transit ridership and more environmentally friendly transportation projects, such as bicycle paths.

In San Jose, Mineta served as a city council member from 1967 to 1971 and mayor from 1971 to 1974. He was the first Asian Pacific American mayor of a major U.S. city.

Mineta and his family were among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry forced from their homes and into internment camps during World War II. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Mineta joined the Army in 1953 and served as an intelligence officer in Japan and Korea. While in Congress, Mineta was the driving force behind passage of H.R. 442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during the War. In 1995, George Washington University awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Medal to Mineta for his contributions to the field of civil rights.

About Santa Clara University School of Law:

The SCU School of Law was founded in 1912. Approximately 900 students are enrolled in the law school, which offers specialty certificates in one of three areas: intellectual property law, international law or public interest law. The law school offers internships at high-tech companies, local law firms, local public services agencies and in 13 foreign countries in Europe and the Far East. Each year, lawyers from foreign countries study at SCU, earning an L.L.M. degree in United States law.

The law school's East San Jose Community Law Center and its Santa Clara Law Clinic provide pro bono experience for law students. This year, the University became home to the new Northern California Innocence project.

The SCU law library has nearly 280,000 volumes in hard copy and microform. The SCU law school has an Institute of International and Comparative Law, a High Tech Law Program, a Public Interest Law Center, and the Edwin A. Heafey Jr. Center for Trial and Appellate Advocacy. Law school publications include the Santa Clara Law Review, the Computer and High Technology Law Journal, the Advocate newspaper, the Environmental Law Review, and the alumni magazine Et.Al.

The law school also offers interdisciplinary courses, and a joint J.D./MBA program. In the fall, it will offer L.L.M. degrees in high-tech law and in international law. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and the State Bar of California, and is a member of the Association of American Law School, the Conference of Western Law Schools, and the Law School Admission Council.

Santa Clara University, the oldest institution of higher education in California, is a private Catholic, Jesuit university with approximately 4,300 undergraduate and 3,050 graduate students. The University celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2000-2001.

For information about the Santa Clara University School of Law, see http://www.scu.edu/law. To arrange for an interview with Mineta, or with law school dean Mack Player, call Barry Holtzclaw at 408/554-5126. It is likely that Mineta will be available for interviews following the commencement ceremony, at approximately 11:30 a.m. in Mission Gardens.