Tafties - The Taft School

B U L L E T I N
SPRING 2009
LegaL
Tafties

j tibetan monks build
and then dismantle a sand
mandala in the Potter
Gallery. See page 6. Ye e-Fu n Yin
16
a Courtly gentLeman
Judge Robert Sweet ’40 has
seen many high-profile cases
over the years, but in the end, he
says, it’s about upholding values.
By John Mooney ’78
20
greener
GoinG Forward
Laws to protect the planet are
set to broaden.
By Liz Barratt-Brown ’77

B U L L E T I N
SPrinG 2009
Volume 79, number 3
Bulletin Staff
direcTor oF deveLoPmenT:
Chris latham
ediTor: Julie reiff
ALumni noTeS: linda Beyus
deSiGn: good design, llC
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ProoFreAder: nina Maynard
mAiL LeTTerS To:
Julie reiff, editor
taft Bulletin
the taft School
Watertown, Ct 06795-2100 u�S�A�
reiffJ@taftSchool�org
Send ALumni newS To:
linda Beyus
Alumni office
the taft School
Watertown, Ct 06795-2100 u�S�A�
taftBulletin@taftSchool�org
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hdt At BAt
TAFT ON THE WEB
Find a friend’s address or look
up back issues of the Bulletin
at www.TaftAlumni.com
For more campus news and
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information, visit www.TaftSchool.org
24
The Freedom to
MAke A diFFerenCe
An excerpt from the
best-selling author’s new
book, Life Without Lawyers
By Philip K. Howard ’66
What happened at this
afternoon’s game?
Visit www.TaftSports.com
DEPARTMENTS
on The cover: With 30
years on the federal bench,
Judge Robert Sweet ’40
has seen such high-profile
cases as Judith Miller’s and
McDonald’s, but in the end,
he says it’s about upholding
values. (See page 16.)
Jo s e p h J. La w t o n
Don’t forget you can shop
online at www.TaftStore.com
800.995.8238
or 860.945.7736

L e t t e r S
From the editor
A law theme? I’ll admit I had my reservations.
Lawyers have always been so readily
maligned. But, in my years at Taft, I have
been fortunate to hear about the work of
many distinguished alumni in the legal
profession—some have been mentioned
in these pages before. The three featured
in this issue have very different careers,
but each has set the highest standards
and worked to improve their part of our
increasing litigious society. I think their
stories give us hope for the way ahead.
But what’s a law theme without a
good lawyer joke. And speaking of good
lawyer jokes…You know, of course, that a
bad lawyer can let a case drag out for several
years, but a good lawyer can make it last
even longer.
Thanks for reading. As always, I
want to hear your stories.
—Julie Reiff
Correction
In the winter issue, I misspelled the name
of Brian Jang ’10 in the item about his independent
studies in math, and I left off
the photo credit on page 64, which goes
to photography teacher Yee-Fun Yin. My
apologies to both.
The savings below are achieved when 100
percent postconsumer recycled fiber is
used in place of virgin fiber. Taft Bulletin
uses 10,750 lbs of Mohawk paper per
issue, which translates into the following:
• 103 trees preserved for the future
• 4,850 lbs solid waste not generated
• 9,550 lbs net greenhouse gases
prevented
• 73,100,000 BTUs energy not consumed
And because the paper is manufactured
with windpower, there are further benefits,
or the equivalent of:
• not driving 4,798 miles, or
• planting 330 trees
Environmental impact calculations provided
by Mohawk Papers.
2 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
Paper Chase
As a “tree hugger” myself, I must congratulate
you and your staff on printing the Bulletin on
recycled paper. Frankly, the nonglossy print
makes it easier for me to read and quality of
the pictures suffers very little.
Your efforts are greatly appreciated; keep
up the good work.
—Clark Bridgman ’49
I want to congratulate you for making a huge
leap to a much greener product. I live near
Brooks School and have a son who graduated
from there recently, and they have been very
involved in the Green Cup Challenge.
Congratulations on moving in this direction.
It is a fine line deciding what to publish
vs. what to share electronically. I tend to be old
school and like something in my hand but the
younger folks are just the opposite.
—Larry Morris ’69
walk with me
I couldn’t help catching the Taft Trivia shot
of, of course, John Cushing Esty. He certainly
had his challenges with us, the Woodstock
generation, but ultimately did okay. After all,
we got coeducation and Lance Odden directly
as a result of his leadership. My main memory
of him is being regularly summoned to “walk
with me” outside the building when circumstances
required a difficult discussion. Anyway,
there’s no mistaking him or his trademark bike
in that shot.
—Alan Klingenstein ’72
Love it? Hate it?
Read it? Tell us!
We’d love to hear what you think about
the stories in this Bulletin. We may
edit your letters for length, clarity and
content, but please write!
Julie Reiff, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
or ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org
In one of John Esty’s earliest Vespers talks
he described his belief that people should
seek new jobs/roles about every ten years to
avoid stagnation. When he announced that he
would be leaving Taft (after only nine years of
service), I wrote him to express my sorrow that
he still believed in what he had told us in the
beginning of my uppermid year.
—Greg B. Brown ’65
masters
As always, you have assembled a lot of fascinating
information about the school and put it in a
truly stunning format. Congratulations to you
and your staff.
One of the items that caught my attention
was a snippet on page 15 of the fall issue
about the new grading scale. In the hands
of some of the masters, the dear old 0–100
scale that was in use in the late ’40s was truly
a terrifying instrument. Mr. Thomas was
particularly fond of zeros. If one stumbled
in sight-reading Caesar in his Middle Latin
class, he would say “Mr. Greer, I asked you for
—continued on page 35
?
trivia
Since this issue has a law theme, we ask
where did Horace Dutton Taft AND
his brother William attend law school?
You may have to research the web for
this one! A set of coasters will be sent to
the winner.
We had a record number of replies
to our last contest identifying John Esty
as the school’s third headmaster, who
came to Taft from Amherst College.
Congratulations to Greg Brown ’65,
whose name was drawn from all correct
entries received.

Horsing Around
Susan and John Moore ’56 approach
horse racing like college students working
on their term papers.
“We divide up the work: I do the
syndications, insurance, accounting,
and business part of the horse ownership
while Susan does the heavy lifting
in picking out the horses we buy and
then working with the trainers and vets
to help them achieve their potential,”
said John, an investment banker. “We
have done it together for ten years, so
we each know what we should be focusing
on to get the right bloodstock, keep
costs in line and win races.”
The Moores recently created a series
of fractional interest partnerships called
M and M Thoroughbred Partners. John
and Susan typically own the largest share
of each horse with 8 to 12 smaller partners.
They strive to generate a profit for
the partners, an elusive goal. Several years
ago, they began to focus on racing rather
than breeding, selling the fillies after their
racing careers as broodmare prospects.
Over the last few years, the Moores sold
Grade 1 Acorn Stakes-winner Zaftig and
Grade 2 winner Smokey Glacken, Grade 3
winner Pocus Hocus and Grade 3 winner
Lady Marlboro to different breeders for
just under $4.5 million.
In addition to those mares, the
Moores’ other stakes winners include
Doremifasollatido, Iron Deputy, Tiger,
Grand Champion, Tinseltown and Lager,
who was their first big winner back in
2000. Their stable is comprised of 33
horses today, and the Moores plan to
gradually increase that to 80 or 100
over the next few years. They have also
taken in a number of horses that needed
a home and paid for their care.
b Susan and John Moore ’56 walking
Zaftig in from the Acorn Stakes last year
at Belmont Park. Ad A m Co g l iA n e s e
“More people should step up and
take responsibility for their horses in retirement,”
says John, who is also on the
board of directors of the Thoroughbred
Retirement Foundation (TRF). “Susan’s
philosophy is that she just doesn’t want
horses put through the claiming ranks,”
John said. “It’s better for us to find them
a nice home, turn them into jumpers
or find another career for them, rather
than lose control of them in the claiming
ranks. She’s actually claimed them back
when that has happened. Susan falls in
love with all of her animals.” They believe
it’s all about personal responsibility.
“The Moores are unwavering in
their commitment to every horse,” said
TRF Executive Director Diana Pikulksi.
“If they can do right by all of their horses,
so can more owners.”
As for Lager, the winner of the
Stuyvesant and Excelsior Handicaps in
2000, he was originally sent to a farm after
his last race, but he didn’t like a life of
leisure. “He grew bored and sullen, so we
brought him back to the track and got
him a job as a track pony,” John said. “He
was a very active and very happy pony
who loved being back on the track with
other horses. It gave him a new lease on
life, and his last years were happy ones.”
In other words, says TRF, Lager was
a typical John and Susan Moore retiree.
Sources: Breeding News, Mid-Atlantic
Thoroughbred, The Blood-Horse and
Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 3

HAll oF FAMe
Carl Hennrich ’65 was the smallest guy
on Larry Stone’s lower-mid B football
team his first year at Taft, but despite his
size he always dreamed of playing college
and professional football. Thanks, he
says, to Coach Stone’s inspirational influence,
he went on to play for Claremont
McKenna and to become that school’s
first football athlete to play in the NFL,
competing for the Buffalo Bills.
No surprise then that Claremont
McKenna recently inducted Hennrich
into their Athletic Hall of Fame.
Hennrich played wide receiver and
defensive back in each of his years for
the Claremont Stags and also returned
punts and kickoffs. At the completion
of his senior season, he held the career
Moving up to MontreAl
“It’s unbelivable to be able to reach
my childhood dream of becoming a
professional hockey player,” says Max
Pacioretty ’07, who was a first-round
NHL draft pick
4 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
j Former pro footballer
Carl hennrich ’65 is
inducted into Claremont’s
athletic hall of Fame.
record for total pass reception yardage
(1,437). He earned Second Team
All-SCIAC honors in 1966 and 1968
and Second Team All-District honors
in 1968. He also played club lacrosse,
earning small college All-American
for the Montreal Canadiens, and 22nd
pick overall, in 2007. “After all of the
years of travel hockey, high school
hockey, prep school hockey, playing
in the USHL (Sioux City Musketeers)
honors, and club rugby, earning All-
Tournament selection twice. He was a
tremendous athlete in the early days of
Claremont-Mudd athletics.
Besides, adds Carl, “the older I get,
the greater I used to be.”
and NCCA, to make it is very exciting.”
After Taft, Max went on to Division
I hockey at the University of Michigan
and played collegiate hockey for just
one season before signing a three-year
deal with the Canadiens. He debuted
for the Canadiens in January. Max’s
very first shot in the NHL was quite
memorable as he scored the Canadiens’
only goal in a 4–1 loss against the New
Jersey Devils.
“From watching players that I idolized
growing up, like Alexi Kovalev, and
then to be sitting right next to them in
the locker room is daunting. The most
difficult part,” he says, though, “of playing
in the NHL is having to perform well
day in and day out. There is a long list of
people just waiting to take my job. There
are no days off; every day is a challenge.”
Katie Pacioretty ’10 contributed to this
article.
b Max Pacioretty, #67 of the Montreal
Canadiens, is checked by Shaone Morrisonn
of the Washington Capitals during their
NHL game at Montreal’s Bell Centre in
January. dAv e sA n d f o r d/nHli viA getty im A g e s

BritAnniA in BrieF: tHe scoop on All tHings BritisH
leslie Banker ’85 and william mullins
Random House, 2009
“When we got engaged,” writes Leslie,
“we knew it was the dawn of an era of
togetherness—living together, vacationing
together, paying bills together,
maybe even showering together—but
writing a book together wasn’t something
that we had ever considered.”
Then the couple spent a week
in England. Leslie, the native New
Yorker, had about a million questions
for William, the native Londoner. Who
are “chavs,” “yobs” and “hoodies”? How
about a TARDIS? Who’s more important:
a duke or an earl? Is “bloody” a
very bad word or a mildly bad word?
What’s “salad cream”? And what the
heck is a “test match” at “Lords”?
Some of the questions were so basic
they seemed embarrassing: Exactly
what’s the difference between the UK,
Britain, and England? Is the U.K. a
member of the E.U.? If so, then why
do they use pounds instead of euros?
“In short, over the course of
that trip we realized the cultural divide
between the U.S. and the U.K.
is really a gaping chasm,” she adds.
“We needed a book that would answer
all these questions once and for
all. And so we wrote Britannia in
Brief—together. And it worked out
surprisingly well (except for a few minor
nationality-based disagreements
regarding punctuation and spelling).”
For more information, visit
www.britanniainbrief.com.
liFe WitHout lAWYers: liBerAting AMericAns FroM too MucH lAW
Philip K. howard ’66
W.W. Norton & Company, 2009
The land of the free has become a
legal minefield. People sue for anything.
A legal mindset has infected
daily dealings: 78 percent of middle
and high school teachers in America
say they have been threatened
with lawsuits or claims of violating
rights—by their students.
The cost is not only personal
frustration but also the pervasive
failure of our public institutions
and a corrosion of America’s can-do
spirit. It is basically impossible to fix
schools, healthcare or government,
Howard argues, until people with responsibility
are liberated to use their
common sense.
“What is needed is not a reform
but a quiet revolution,” writes
Howard. “This shift in approach
is not about changing our goals—
almost everyone I know wants a clean
environment, safe workplaces, good
schools, competent doctors and laws
against discrimination. The challenge
is to liberate humans to accomplish
these goals. This requires a sharp
turn away from current legal conven-
tions—nearly endless rules and rights
designed to avoid decisions by people
with responsibility—toward law that
restores free exercise of judgment at
every level of responsibility.”
Howard, author of the bestselling
The Death of Common
Sense, advises leaders of both
parties on legal and regulatory reform.
He is chair of Common
Good (www.commongood.org)
and a contributor to the New York
Times and the Wall Street Journal.
(See excerpt on page 24.)
neXt stop, reloville: liFe inside AMericA’s neW rootless
proFessionAl clAss
Peter t. Kilborn ’57
Henry Holt & Company, 2009
Drive through the newest subdivisions
outside of Atlanta, Dallas or
Pittsburgh and you’ll notice an unusual
similarity in the layout of the
houses, the models of the cars, the
pastimes of the stay-at-home moms.
But this is not your grandparents’
suburbia, “the little houses made of
ticky-tacky”—these houses go for a
half-million dollars and up, and no
one stays longer than three or four
soMetHing More
andrew Solomon ’92
It’s been a long time, almost six
years, since I have come out with
new music. A lot has happened.…
I went back to graduate school, I
worked some more, started a family.
years. You have entered the land of
“relos,” the mid-level executives for a
growing number of American companies,
whose livelihoods depend
on their willingness to uproot their
families in pursuit of professional success.
Together they constitute a new
social class, well-off but insecure, well-
traveled but insular. Veteran reporter
Peter Kilborn takes us inside the lives
of American relos, showing how their
I finally headed back into the studio
to record the songs. It was an amazing
experience to work with some
great writers and amazing musicians.
I hope you will take a listen.
distinctive set of pressures and values
affects not only their own families
and communities, but also the country
as a whole. Peter was a reporter for
the New York Times for thirty years,
having covered such issues as business,
economics, social issues, and
the workplace. He was also one of
the contributors to the Times’ award-
winning series (and book) Class Matters.
He lives near Washington, D.C.
I’ll be playing shows both on the
East and West coasts.
For more information, visit
www.andrewsolomon.com
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 5
In PrInt

m A visiting Tibetan monk empties the
sand from the peace mandala into flowing
water to carry the blessing throughout the
world. ye e-fu n yin
6 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
b An inFuSion oF
TibeTAn SpiRiT
During the last week of February, Taft
hosted a group of six Tibetan monks
who showered the community with
their art, music, political awareness and
spiritual good vibes.
The visit was an offshoot of the one
from a year ago, during which two monks
presented us with a traditional Buddhist
Thangka to add to our collection of sacred
art and religious texts. This group of
monks spent the week in Potter Gallery
creating a “peace mandala,” an art form
based in colored sand that is meant to be
admired first for its aesthetics and then
spread throughout an area as a blessing
of peace. Students and faculty visited the
gallery to watch their progress and to admire
the dedication of the monks.
They began their visit with an opening
ceremony in the gallery on Monday,
followed by a presentation in Morning
Meeting on Tuesday that addressed their
life in exile at the monastery in southern
India and how their own religious lives
figure into that struggle for freedom. They
visited most of Chaplain Bob Ganung’s
classes, in which they discussed Tibetan
Buddhism, history, culture, art, music,
and politics. More specifically, they discussed
the meaning of mandalas, which
further substantiated the work they were
doing in the Potter Gallery.
The week wrapped up with the dispersion
of the peace mandala into the
brook behind the baseball field. “The
For the latest news
on campus events,
please visit
TaftSchool.org.
Around the pond
by Sam Routhier
closing ceremony was moving, colorful,
and rich with ritual, chants, and the
traditional cacophony of Tibetan horns,
drums and symbols,” says Ganung.
“The monks said that the brook would
carry the sand to the whole world, blessing
all the fish, animals, plant life, and
living organisms that share this earth
with us. We were so lucky to have the
monks here, as I sensed that their very
presence generated an evolving feeling
of serenity, gentleness and peacefulness
that permeated the whole school.”
c ouR nATion’S
GReATeST SociAl
injuSTice
When she was a senior at Princeton
University in the late 1980s, Wendy
Kopp had the idea for Teach for America
and presented it as the research thesis for
her public policy major. She saw all of
her friends looking for jobs that required
leadership and ambition, and it seemed
that the only jobs that were recruiting
those skills were on Wall Street. She
thought to herself, “Why aren’t we being
recruited as aggressively to teach?”
Nearly 20 years later, Kopp—who
is both the group’s founder and now
CEO—reported at a Morning Meeting
in March on the history, mission and
relevance of Teach for America.
“It was an idea whose time had come,”
she said. “It must exist; it’s so obvious. If
I hadn’t started it, someone else would
have, so right off the bat, it magnetized

hundreds, thousands of people who were
drawn to the idea and the principles on
which it existed. Within one year, 2,500
college seniors responded to a grass-roots
campaign that brought 500 volunteers
into rural and inner-city schools.”
Today, TFA is a booming program.
It annually fields 35,000 applicants,
including 15 percent of the graduating
classes of Harvard and Princeton.
Of these, it accepts 5,000 teachers for
two-year stints. Many stay in education
afterward, and most others translate leadership
skills to other arenas. According
to Kopp, the program fosters “fighting
for change from within.” TFA teachers
are selected to be innovative, hard
working and ambitious, and by creating
a corps of such high-powered people,
TFA has made huge impacts on educational
injustice nationally.
Kopp sees the problem of educational
injustice as “unconscionable,”
for the reason that it is clearly solvable.
“Still today, in our country—a country
that aspires so admirably to be a land of
equal opportunity—where you are born
does so much to determine your educational
prospects and in turn your life
prospects.” She has seen the success of
TFA teachers in turning around strug-
gling classrooms, and therefore believes
strongly that America can work to solve
educational inequity.
Kopp also serves as the chief executive
of Teach For All, which supports
the development of Teach for America’s
model in other countries. Her talk
was sponsored by the Paley Family
Endowment, established in 2006 by
Valerie and Jeffrey Paley ’56. The Paley
Lectures invite speakers to address the
school community on current issues of
m Teach for America founder and CEO Wendy Kopp talks with the headmaster and
students after Morning Meeting. ye e-fu n yin
major significance, such as government,
journalism, foreign affairs, environment
and civil liberties, in order to provide
Taft students with the opportunity to be
inspired by the value and dignity of lives
filled with purpose and commitment.
j cARe To cHAT?
Many alumni will remember some versions
of a Mid Health or Mid Values
program. The format has changed dramatically
over the years but has always
focused on 10th graders. Last year, the
headmaster charged the faculty to create
a dynamic and comprehensive community
health education program at Taft
that addresses issues of health and wellness
throughout a student’s career here.
Headed by Jean Piacenza and
Rachel Russell, an ad hoc committee
spent the fall and winter outlining a new
program: Community Health At Taft,
or CHAT. More than half the faculty
have expressed an interest in helping
with the new program, but Jean, who
will oversee the program, is also hoping
to tap into the expertise of alumni and
parents. “And all of their friends, family,
and contacts,” she adds, “to help me
to discover what’s out there—speakers,
films and other resources—that we
might incorporate into the program.”
Through monthly presentations
and follow-up discussions, the comprehensive
health program will address
themes specific to each class. The topics
students will CHAT about revolve
around designated themes: Lowermids
will focus on “transitions,” mids on
“bodies,” uppermids on “responsibility”
and seniors on “the world.”
Sessions for ninth graders would
likely cover such subjects as community
building, kindness to others, honor and
integrity, dormitory living, personal hygiene,
peer pressure, dormitory living,
sleep and time management.
As with the Mid Health and
Wellness program, the 10th-grade
theme is designed to help students
make healthy choices. Uppermids will
be encouraged to act responsibly toward
themselves and others in the community,
discussing such issues as self-regulation,
sexual pressure, body image, sleep, stress
management, gender roles, family pressures
and the college process.
Topics for seniors are designed to
help them understand their responsibilities
in both the local and global
community, building on the concept of
responsibility, but also self-knowledge,
the transition to college, saying goodbye,
service and leadership.
Members of the Taft community
who have a particular expertise or know
of excellent resources on any of these
topics are encouraged to contact Jean
Piacenza (jeanpiacenza@taftschool.org).
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 7

PH o t o C o u r t e s y o f Ta f T an n u a l
Around the pond
club SpoTliGHT
. inveSTinG
in excellence
Taft prides itself on its students’ broad
range of talents and interests. Each day’s
schedule is filled with a huge variety of
activities, from academics to athletics to
service learning and cultural enrichment.
The latest incarnation of the Economics
Club, led by seniors Johnny DePeters,
Jamie Benasuli and Charlie Wagner, has
captured this theme of our world.
At a meeting in the faculty room,
DePeters described the club to the new
members with unique knowledge and
savvy about investing. With help from
the Business Office, the Red Rhino
foundation and a sale of Vineyard Vines
8 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
shirts last year, the club has $6,500 at
its disposal. With this money, they will
work in conjunction with brokers from
Smith Barney to create a portfolio that
will grow over time and further benefit
the Red Rhino foundation, an endowment
for Taft’s service organizations.
The group meets every other week to
consider proposals on which new stocks
to invest in. In turn, members increase
their knowledge of investment strategies
and diversify their portfolios, starting
with low-risk stocks and moving into
hedge funds and smaller companies.
Intent on teaching investing not
only through the experience, but
also through staying up on the news
and reading relevant texts, DePeters
brought copies of The Intelligent
Investor, A Random Walk Down Wall
Street and The Neatest Little Guide to
Stock Market Investing to the opening
meeting. He also suggests that members
set Google Finance as their online
home page. Jeremy Clifford, who
serves as faculty adviser, is excited to
share his experience from working at
CapitalOne and Mercer Management
Consulting with students.
Last fall, Wagner ran an investment
club on campus, which simulated
playing the stock market and included
a contest to see which students made
the highest returns. Although Wagner
felt that the club was too game-
m Rockwell Visiting Artist Dawn Clements sketches a student room. ye e-fu n yin
oriented, and not realistic enough, the
contest captivated the Taft community.
Middler Pell Bermingham won
the game with a high-risk investment
that paid off 266 percent. “My father
would always tell me to diversify my
stocks when using actual money,” Pell
explains, “but I knew this was a game
and if I wanted to win I would have
to take huge risks…. So I capitalized
on Morgan Stanley, knowing that if the
Japanese bank Mitsubishi invested in
them, the stock would skyrocket.”
Bermingham’s victory demonstrates
the mass appeal of economic investment
to Taft students, and the potential success
of future endeavors. With the Economics
Club, Wagner hopes to build a genuine
interest and devotion to investing, in a
way that will also enhance students’ presentation
and oratory skills.
“Kids are doing research, presenting,
synthesizing ideas and arguing
persuasively about things they really
care about,” says DePeters, “and that will
benefit them and the whole school.”
. poRTRAiT RoomS
Walking by the Potter Gallery in
January, it was hard to keep heading
toward Bingham Auditorium or to
Main Hall without stopping to examine
the exhibit. Visiting artist Dawn
Clements captured different perspectives
on familiar Taft spaces, and her

work appealed to students as a result.
Clements found Taft through fellow
artist Marc Leuthold ’80, with
whom she taught a course at Princeton
University in 2006. She arrived on
campus on December 26, while students
were on vacation, and stayed in
Centennial, where she sketched the
room of seniors Callie Strickland and
Schuyler Dalton in “The Living Space
of a Taft Girl.”
“I was interested in how the
room portrayed the girls’ personality,”
Clements says. “Will the picture of
the room result in an accurate depiction
of the girls themselves?” Although
her early work focused on portraying
female roles in cinema, she switched to
describing space through art. She constantly
changes point of view to create
a disorienting yet creative portrayal of
different rooms.
Her work has been on exhibit
in Leipzig and Vienna and also in
American museums at Middlebury and
Amherst college, Princeton University
and at the MoMA in New York. At
Taft, she did workshops with Loueta
Chickadaunce’s intermediate and AP
Studio Art classes.
inSiGHTS inTo THe
WeST bAnk conFlicT
Professor Karin Zetterholm outlined
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through
a brief history as well as through perspectives
from each side at a Morning
Meeting in February. A visiting professor
at Yale, where she teaches a course
on “Terror in the Name of God,”
Zetterholm met Chaplain Bob Ganung
last summer when he was guest chaplain
at Lund University, a publicly
funded school in Sweden, where she is
a professor of Jewish studies and rabbinic
literature. In her talk, Zetterholm
supplemented many of Taft’s history
courses by exploring how religion and
politics intertwine to shape current
global affairs.
m To see how seniors conquered the campus,
visit http://gocrosscampus.com/game/taft.
m A GAme oF
cAmpuS dominATion
Middler John Canver set a great idea
in motion this winter, starting up a
contest of GoCrossCampus, an interactive
computer-based game originally
designed for college campuses. Canver
heard about the game from his brother,
who is a senior at Johns Hopkins.
The programmers of the game,
which is similar to the board game
RISK, design a map of the campus as if it
were a world map separated by political
boundaries. For instance, at Taft, HDT
was one country; Rockefeller Field was
another, and so on. Players create their
own accounts, are assigned a team and
play one turn per day.
In Taft’s version, teams were separated
by class year. Players maneuver their
resources and attack neighboring territories
with the goal of campus domination.
The senior class won the Taft game—for
which 277 students signed up—after
about two weeks of play. According to
Canver, the Class of 2009’s victory was
due to “having more motivation and organization
than other grades.”
The game has great potential to entrench
itself as the newest tradition. “I
think GoCrossCampus could be great
for Taft,” Canver says. “First and foremost,
it promotes school spirit but is
also just a fun thing to do among all of
our activities—a break from stress and
a chance for healthy competition. At
the same time, it isn’t at all a huge time
commitment. I figured it was very little
work for something that had the potential
to be a new ‘Taft thing.’ I’m hoping
to create a faculty team for next round,
so we can really get the whole community
involved.”
volunTeeRS
pARTicipATe in
HomeleSS counT
On Thursday, January 29, ten Taft
students headed into Waterbury to
participate in the annual homeless
count. Led by the United Way, this
event has volunteers scour the streets,
forests and abandoned buildings of
Waterbury in search of homeless people.
Upon finding the homeless, the
volunteers conduct a survey, all with
an eye toward collecting accurate information
to provide state and federal aid
programs. Two days beforehand, students
went through a training session
led by a United Way representative,
explains uppermid Biz Brauer, to help
them learn how to conduct surveys and
how to most efficiently search for the
homeless. Then, At 5:50 a.m., students
loaded up two cars, driven by parent
volunteers Rachel and Jon Albert
’79, and spent the next four hours in
various regions of Waterbury before returning
for classes.
“The homeless count was vastly
different from a typical communityservice
endeavor,” says senior Diana
Saverin, who participates in volunteering
both through the afternoon
extracurricular program and through
the more continuous Volunteer
Council. “Usually, I go to Girls’ Inc.
and work with the students there on
their homework, and it is always a
happy, enthusiastic, fulfilling experience.
This day was different. It was
less about interpersonal warmth and
more about understanding the realities
of being homeless. It was certainly
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 9

Around the pond
gratifying to reflect on these people’s
lives and to understand how necessary
it is to do thankless jobs like homeless
counts, but in a different way from
what I’m used to.”
Uppermid Hailey Karcher also
spoke to the “reality check” nature of
the experience: “It was hard to see,”
Hailey told the Waterbury Republican
American. “To know people are living
like this just 10 minutes away from my
school, where we’re all really privileged,
it was an eye-opener.”
“When I first came here, I was not
involved in service at all,” says Saverin.
“I didn’t know how I could get involved,
especially if I wasn’t part of the volunteer
ex or the council. With the new
web site, I can hop onto the Internet,
type in my interests, and quickly figure
out ways to get involved.” That
new tool is courtesy of Hope Gimbel
and Beth Kessenich ’08, who worked
last year to create a database of volunteer
opportunities that is searchable on
the new site (click on Non Ut Sibi and
then “Find Ways to Help.”)
As she prepares to graduate,
Saverin hopes that our understanding
of Non Ut Sibi continues to evolve:
that we give our time more often than
we give our money, that we see service
opportunities as educational, and that
a broader percentage of students give
of themselves to the community.
A SlAm dunk
oF A niGHT
Instead of the typical DJ dance, students
decided to take a new spin on
Saturday nights and host Hoops Night,
a basketball extravaganza that got the
whole school involved. From 7 to 8
p.m., the boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball
teams, led by captains Bobby
Manfreda ’09 and Ches Fowler ’09,
ran a clinic for local 8 to 12-year-olds.
At 8, Taft students started rolling into
the field house for the first round of the
3-on-3 coed tournament.
10 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
The school was split into four regions,
à la March Madness: MacMullen,
Cobb, Saarnijoki, and Hinman, with
four to six teams vying for a spot in the
final four. After the final four was set,
everyone took a break for a dance party
and 3-point shootout, won by middler
Kate Karraker of Morgantown, West
Virginia, who sunk 19 “treys” in one
minute to take the crown. Big thanks
to Headmaster MacMullen for putting
up a $200 Nike gift certificate for the
winning team, which featured seniors
Julian Siegelmann, Deandre Simmons,
Tim McPhee, and uppermid Sarah
Perda. Proceeds from the night totaled
$330 for Sudan Sunrise, a foundation
that builds schools in war-torn Sudan
(see “Lessons from a Civil War” in the
fall issue).
. ScApino: A knee-
SlAppinG SucceSS
When it came time to choose this year’s
winter play, recent Bulletin cover girl
Helena Fifer knew she needed a great
comedy to get the school through
what has been a real cold spell. She
brainstormed her favorite plays, and
came upon Scapino!, a Molière piece
m Seniors Bisi Thompson as the gypsy
Zerbinetta and Nick Tyson as miserly
father-in-law Geronte in Scapino! An d r e li ’11
that she had first seen when she was
12. She knew that this “commedia
dell’arte” was perfect for the audience
and for the cast: fast-paced, filled with
slapstick, and in many ways farcical.
Fifer had worked with this particular
cast many times before, from theater
veteran Will Sayre ’09 to techieturned-actor
Keith Culkin ’09 to her
own son, Sam Fifer ’11. With an experienced
cast and a surefire script,
Scapino was destined for success.
Still, the play encountered its
fair share of challenges along the way.
The set was especially intricate, and
converted the Bingham stage into a
multilayered ship’s deck. The set designers
came from outside of Taft,
and were difficult to communicate
with all the time. Additionally, there
were shake-ups in the cast during the
preparation for the play, but the actors
were always positive in their responses
to challenges. Sayre told the Papyrus,
“Everyone seems committed to making
the show a success.”
Fifer gives a special shout out to
Cindy Latham, wife of Director of
Development Chris Latham. Cindy
has an extensive acting background,
and while she was not formally a member
of the production team, she came
to every rehearsal to serve as a character
coach and general support for the
cast. With pros Fifer and Latham and a
veteran cast, Scapino was a surefire hit
this winter that brought a smile to the
community’s face.
GReen cup
cHAllenGed
The final results of the Green Cup
Challenge are in; Taft increased its
electricity use by 1.8 percent compared
to the same month last year,
coming in second-to-last out of 48
schools, one of only four participating
schools that increased electricity
consumption.
“It is difficult to pinpoint an ab

solute cause for the increase,” Wells
Andres ’09 said, “For the four weeks,
members of Taft Environmental
Awareness Movement monitored six
electric meters, four at the gym and
two on main campus. One of the
two main campus meters covers CPT
and Vogelstein dorms, and the other
covers all other non-gym buildings.
Congratulations are due to CPT and
Vogue, who consistently lowered their
energy consumption, one week by as
much as 14 percent,” he adds.
This is the first year that Taft participated
in the Green Cup Challenge.
. in WAlkeR HAll
Two concerts brightened the winter term
through the monthly Walker Hall series,
Music For a While.
c Tiffany Consort brought together several
of New York’s finest singers with the intention
of presenting virtuosic choral music from all
periods, under the direction of Nicholas White.
All eight singers in the ensemble are also all
soloists in their own right. The group takes its
name from American stained-glass artist Louis
Comfort Tiffany. Pe t e r fr e w
. Performing in early January, Rani Arbo and
daisy mayhem shared sparkling original songs
and a deep repertoire that spans 200 years of
American music. They are an unusually gleeful
string band that celebrates both tradition and
improvisation and that stumps the categorizers.
ye e-fu n yin
Spearheaded by the leaders of the
TEAM—Andres, Schuyler Dalton, John
Lombard, Sydney Low, Ian Overton,
Diana Saverin and Nick Tyson—
expectations for Taft’s performance
in GCC were not particularly high.
“We didn’t come into the GCC
with any ambition of reducing energy
use by some huge percentage,” says
Nick. “We knew that, because we were
doing it for the first time, we would
have a difficult time getting all the details
worked out, and we thought it was
worth the effort even to simply raise
awareness around school.”
“As one of the heads of TEAM, I was
disappointed in our overall increase,”
says Wells. “Certainly we would have
liked to have succeeded our first year,
but even though we didn’t, the work we
put in can only make next year’s challenge
run more easily.”
“I am optimistic about Taft’s performance
in future GCCs,” agrees
science teacher Jim Lehner, one of
TEAM’s two faculty advisers. “We
learned a lot about our school, students
and faculty during this function, and
we must use that knowledge to perform
better in the future.”
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 11

12 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
S P O R T
WinTeR WRaP-uP 2009
For more on the
winter season,
visit TaftSports.com.
by STeve PalmeR
m New England Champion Sachika Balvani ’12, no. 1 on the girls’ varsity squad, blasts a forehand rail vs. Loomis. Pe t e r fr e w ’75
WReSTling 8–7
Due to illness and injury, at no point during
the winter did Taft have a full, healthy
squad. An exciting 40–37 win over
Salisbury came down to the last match,
and early in January the team recorded
a rare shutout with a 72–0 blanking of
Gunnery. The end of the season provided
some of the best wrestling of the winter.
Taft hosted the Western New England
Tournament (20 schools) and provided
lots of excitement for the home crowd.
Co-captain elect Tucker Jennings ’10
took home 4th place at 119 pounds.
Middler Mike Brunelli ’11 placed 4th at
125 pounds and senior Isaac Bamgbose
earned 4th at 171 pounds. The crowning
glory of the tournament was provided by
the Rhino captains, as all three worked
their way to the finals. Will Ide ’09 took
home 2nd at 152 pounds. Jimmy Kukral
’09 (112) and Jack Nuland ’09 (160)
each dominated their weight classes en
route to first place finishes. Nuland finished
as a two-time league champion
and went on to wrestle at the National
tournament and place 2nd at the New
England Championships.
bOyS’ SquaSh 5–9
new england Class b
Champions
This talented team began the season
2–0 but would not have its full lineup
again until the final three matches. In
between, Taft would fight hard against
the best of New England. By season’s
end, the Rhinos rounded into form
with strong wins over Choate (5–2) and
Westminster (6–1). Taft then marched
through the Class B New Englands,
with all 7 players getting to the semifinals—an
unusual show of dominance.
James Calello ’11 won the #7 position
and Max Frew ’10 won at #4. Cam
Mullen ’10 (third at #6), Scott Hillman
’09 (3rd at #3), and Andy Cannon ’11
(2nd at #5). Charlie Wagner (4th at #4)
and Max Kachur ’10 (3rd at #1) both
played in the top during the season for
Taft. Though the squad is losing two
fine captains in Wagner and Hillman,
Taft returns several top varsity and JV
players to make a run at the Class A division
next year.

giRlS’ SquaSh 13–6
Founders league Champions
3rd Place new england
Championships
This was a very talented and relatively
young team that finished 8th in the
National team tournament, and only
the New England and National champion,
Greenwich Academy, was out
of their reach. Solid 7–0 wins over
Exeter, Andover and Hotchkiss early
in the season demonstrated Taft’s power,
but the hard-fought victory over
Deerfield (4–3) to avenge an earlier
loss (3–4) was perhaps the team’s most
important match. The team then had
a very good run at the New England
Championships to close out the season,
finishing a mere 2 points out of second
place. In that tournament, Katherine
Carroll ’12 and Celina Schreiber ’12
finished 2nd at the #7 and #6 positions,
while captain Chelsea Ross ’09
(3rd) and Ellie O’Neill ’11 (4th) placed
in the fifth and third positions respectively.
Taft’s top player, Sachika Balvani
’12, won at #1 in an exciting five-game
battle, giving Taft the individual New
England champion at the #1 spot for
the fifth time. Next year’s team may
be even stronger, led by captain-elect
Kelly Barnes ’10, with eight varsity
players returning.
giRlS’ baSkeTball 9–12
The girls’ varsity basketball team finished
at 9–12 playing in a strong league
this year. The composition of the team
was unusual; half were new players (five
lower schoolers and one post-graduate)
so it took some time for them to understand
how best to play together. The
Rhinos still managed to keep alive their
streak against rival Hotchkiss (going
back to 1988) with two victories again
this year. Victories against powerful
Choate (32–28), tournament-bound
Suffield (44–36), and Miss Porter’s (52–
40) were also season highlights. Captain
Ches Fowler ’09 was the team’s second
leading scorer and strongest rebounder,
while Kate Karraker ’11 led the team
averaging ten points per game. Seniors
Annie Fierberg, Liesl Morris, Hannah
Vazquez and Brittney Kennedy played
important roles throughout the season,
so the young ’10 team will have their
work cut out for them.
bOyS’ baSkeTball 13–9
Western new england
quarterfinals
A five game winning streak to close out
the regular season allowed Taft to earn a
sixth consecutive post-season appearance
and the #7 seed in the inaugural Western
New England tournament. During the
final two weeks of the season, Taft had
consecutive road victories over Avon
m Leading scorer and rebounder Clift Bonner-Desravines ’09 led the basketball team to their sixth consecutive post-season
appearance. ro b mA d d e n ’03
(59–40) and Kent (50–47), and ended
the road trip by taking down eventual
league champion Loomis (56–47). The
most exciting moment of the season
came at home when a Jared Jackson ’10
three-pointer at the buzzer gave the team
a 59–57 win against perennial power
Trinity Pawling. Captain Bobby Manfreda
’09 was a strong presence in a variety of
ways and the team’s Logan Award winner
for his contributions over the past four
seasons. Clift Bonner-Desravines ’09 led
the team in both scoring and rebounding
and earned a spot on the Founders
League All-Star team. Also a League
All-Star was sharp-shooting guard John
Beaulieu ’09, who was second in scoring
and led the team in three point shooting
(37 percent). In a final impressive
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 13

S P O R T
m Captain-elect Thomas Freyre ’10 (#25) with assistant captain Jesse Root ’09 (#22)
against South Kent; Taft won 3–2! Pe t e r fr e w ’75
honor, the team and coaches were also
chosen for the Sportsmanship Award by
the Connecticut basketball officials for
their exceptional conduct on the court.
Taft will return six players next year and
will be led by co-captains elect Jackson
and Greg Nicol ’10, a strong guard and
forward duo.
Ski Team
It was an icy, cold season on the slopes
of New England, but the ski team competed
well in a number of four and five
team races in the Berkshire Ski League.
At the Class B New England championships,
the girls’ team placed 13th behind
captain Annie Shafran’s 11th place in the
Giant Slalom (61 skiers), and lowermid
Hadley Morris’ 32nd place in the slalom
14 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
(63 skiers). The boys’ team finished a solid
8th within the 14-team field. Captain
Ben Johnston ’09 and Reed Shapiro ’10,
the team’s top skiers, placed 20th and
21st in the slalom field (70 skiers), while
Jay Feinman ’11 was tops in the giant slalom
in 13th place (70 skiers).
bOyS’ hOCkey 14–6–4
lawrenceville
Tournament Champions
new england quarterfinalists
This great season started with a bang,
a 5–2 win over a very strong Berkshire
team in the first annual Louise B. D’Arco
game, named for the mother of Taft alum
Brad D’Arco ’99, also one of Berkshire’s
coaches. Taft would go on to win its
first six games, including a 5–4 victory
over Choate to capture the prestigious
Lawrenceville Christmas tournament.
Throughout the season, an outstanding
group of seniors demonstrated excellence
on and off the ice. Captain and
Ainger Trophy winner Kevin Reich
’09 commanded the blueline, while assistant
captains and Founders League
All-Stars Jesse Root ’09 (15 goals, 21
assists) and Mike Sinsigalli ’09 (16 g.,
15 a.) were relentless offensively. All-New
England selection Robbie Bourdon ’09
(14 g., 19 a.) and Coach’s Award winner
C.M. Liotta ’09 (4 g., 9 a.) also helped
lead the scoring attack for Taft. The team
ended the regular season ranked 2nd in
Western New England, but the home ice
advantage did not hold in a first round
game against the Gunnery. Despite controlling
play, Taft dropped 2–1 decision
on a deflected shot that found the upper
corner with two minutes left in the
game. Next year’s team will be led by seasoned
players Thomas Freyre ’10, Mike
Petchonka ’10, and John Barr ’10.
giRlS’ hOCkey 9–11–3
After early wins over Lawrenceville and
Gunnery, Taft struggled to score goals,
though they played evenly with some
of the best teams in New England,
including an overtime loss to tournament-bound
Loomis (1–2). A key win
over Cushing Academy (1–0) led to the
team’s best games in the final two weeks,
as the Rhinos avenged earlier losses
by defeating very strong teams from
Choate (2–0) and Berkshire (3–2). In
those two games, co-captain and goalie
Becca Hazlett ’09 played a crucial role
with 41 and 33 saves respectively. She
finished the season with three shutouts.
Fellow co-captain Geneva Lloyd ’09 led
the team in scoring (16 goals, 9 assists),
and was a dominant player for Taft and
within the league at both ends of the ice.
Jess Desorcie ’11 (14 g., 6 a.) was also a
leading scorer for the team, and will be
part of a core of strong young players
who return for the ’10 season.

LegaL
Tafties
“All of us Tafts went into law as naturally as we went from junior year to senior year
in college,” Horace Taft writes in his memoirs. Horace’s brother William, who became
solicitor general under President Benjamin Harrison, had set his career sights on
becoming chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court—a position he achieved after
leaving the White House (briefly teaching law at Yale in between).
Among the nearly 500 alumni who claim the law as their field, there are a
number of prominent jurists, like Robert Sweet ’40, but also prosecutors, sheriffs,
public defenders, law professors, paralegals, arbitrators, D.A.s and attorneys with
every specialty imaginable.
Although Horace also studied law (in Cincinnati), passed the bar and joined a local
firm (before he founded the school), he wrote later that he never enjoyed the “practice”
of law. “I might have done a good deal better,” he wrote, “if I had not been so much
interested in political reform.”
For Philip Howard ’66 reforming the tangled web of our modern legal system
has become a passion also…and he’s taken his case not only to the courts but also
to his publishers.
Despite his desire for reform, I doubt that Horace Taft could have foreseen
a field of law focused on the environment, but that is exactly where Liz Barratt-
Brown ’77 has directed her considerable talent for the past two decades—an area
very much at the heart of reform in Washington these days.
For the Taft family, law and politics were the epitome of public service.
That commitment is now carried on by generations of Taft alumni as well.
—Julie Reiff, editor

A Courtly
Gentleman
Ph o t o g r a P h s b y Jo s e P h J. La w t o n

SWith 30 years on the federal bench, Judge Robert Sweet ’40 has
seen such high-profile cases as Judith Miller’s and McDonald’s,
but in the end, he says it’s about upholding values.
Sitting on one of the nation’s most venerable
federal courts for the last three decades,
Robert W. Sweet certainly has not shied from
dicey disputes.
A senior judge for the Southern District
of New York, he has ruled on his share of the
high-profile cases that regularly move through
the Manhattan court.
There have been notable ones upholding
freedom of speech for political protesters and
freedom of the press for reporters protecting
their sources, and another in 2003 that found
McDonald’s fast-food chain isn’t liable for the
obesity of some of its customers.
Sweet has also repeatedly spoken out against
the nation’s minimum sentencing guidelines, and
drawn his share of criticism along the way, too.
With a gleam in his eye, Sweet cites one
famous First Amendment ruling on behalf of
protesters in 2004 that drew the scorn of New
York City tabloids.
“They had my picture on the front page
and the headline, ‘Judge Mental,’ ” Sweet said
recently with a wry smile, adding he has since
hung the page on his wall at home.
Yet as the 86-year-old Sweet passes his 30th
year on the federal bench, albeit now in a reduced
role, he also relishes the quieter results that have
come out of his court, the countless settlements
that were often outside the headlines.
Two liability cases involving airline disasters
ended with all the survivors’ claims resolved by
settlement, not one of them needing to go to trial.
“You know people who have been hurt and aggrieved
are satisfied with how the process worked,”
Sweet says. “That was a great satisfaction.”
By John Mooney ’78
Sweet’s face even lights up describing the
intricacies of maritime collision cases, seeing
them as a puzzle of tanker-sized proportions.
“It’s a whodunit: who made the mistake
and what were they thinking?” he says. “They’re
like a detective story.”
It’s always been that way for Sweet, dating
back to his rise to power in New York’s City Hall.
Whether rankling authority or deliberating
politely over intellectual property law, Sweet has
continued to be, first and foremost, intent on
resolving whatever dispute and test is put before
him, no matter what it takes.
And always very much relishing the challenge.
“You see a breadth of problems across society
that is really quite incredible,” he says of his
job. “It’s like being part of a daily drama, and
you actually have a role to perform.”
Sweet was born in Yonkers, N.Y., his father
an attorney and his mother a transplant from
Kentucky. With the help of scholarships, he attended
the Horace Mann School in New York
City, and then Taft in Watertown.
From there, it was off to Yale and then the
Navy and then back in New Haven for law
school after the war. It was Dwight Eisenhower’s
presidential campaign that first drew him into
politics as a founder of Youth for Eisenhower.
But for a man who still recites school and
college pals as lifelong mentors and friends, it
was at Yale Law School where he was a roommate
of John Lindsay, the man who would later
become New York City’s mayor and bring Sweet
along with him.
After stints with the federal prosecutor’s office
and then a Wall Street law firm, Sweet served
“Robert Sweet is the
Unabashed No. 2 Man at
City Hall,” wrote the New
York Times in 1968. Sweet,
left, served as deputy
mayor under John Lindsay.
Getting the city budget
approved was one of
his major jobs.
Jo H n or r i s/tH e ne w yo r k ti m e s
“They had my
picture on the
front page and
the headline,
‘Judge Mental.’”

“His ego is always
in check…And
by his diligence,
he is winning
just praise as a
chief problemsolver
in the
administration, a
man who quietly
gets things done.”
18 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
as Lindsay’s deputy mayor for three years in the
late 1960s, his job to work the City Council
and state Legislature and solve the daily crises
that come with the nation’s largest metropolis.
Behind the scenes in the city’s teachers
strike in 1968 and the garbage strike the same
year, Sweet was Lindsay’s point man in ultimately
resolving the disputes. It was a role for
which he drew admiration and respect at the
time, even from the mayor’s critics.
“His ego is always in check,” the New York
Times wrote of Sweet in 1968. “And by his
diligence, he is winning just praise as a chief
problem-solver in the administration, a man
who quietly gets things done.”
Sweet was typically unabashed in recalling
his City Hall years. “It was a great job, a lot of
fun,” he said recently.
It was that same humility he carried to the
federal bench, where he has made his deepest
public mark.
After returning to private practice as a partner
with the esteemed firm of Skadden, Arps,
Slate, Meagher & Flom, he was appointed to
the federal judiciary by President Jimmy Carter
in 1978, a registered Republican appointed by a
Democratic president.
But it was also a time when “liberal” and
“Republican” weren’t necessarily exclusive. “Liberal
Republicans in those days were probably to the
left of most Democrats today,” he says.
And the liberal tag hung around his black
robe, as he repeatedly stood behind press and
speech freedoms and against sentencing laws he
viewed as overly severe.
One of the most notable cases was in 2005
on behalf of New York Times reporters Judith
Miller and Philip Shenon, who sought to
protect their telephone records from the U.S.
Justice Department as they wrote about government
anti-terrorism efforts in the aftermath of
the Sept. 11 attacks.
Sweet’s decision was 120 pages long, with
the judge writing that the “reporter’s privilege” is
a critical right—while also holding out the government’s
own obligations to protect the public.
“The reporters at issue relied upon the
promise of confidentiality to gather information
concerning issues of paramount national
importance,” Sweet wrote. “The government
has failed to demonstrate that the balance of
competing interests weighs in its favor.”
It was near the time that Miller was facing
a separate trial over the leak of CIA operative
Valerie Plame’s identity, a case that ultimately
put her in jail for 85 days. Sweet’s own decision
was overturned on appeal in 2006, but his mind
has not changed.
“I don’t think it is absolute, but a qualified
privilege (for the press),” he says. “But it should
be upheld in all instances unless you can show
an overwhelming national interest. There may
be a circumstance where that’s the case, but that
never came before me.”
Other cases involving rights for political
demonstrations invoked similar conflicts, all
ones he says are fascinating testaments to the
constitutional fabric of the nation. He may
be best known for his stand against minimum
sentencing guidelines that he ruled unconstitutional,
albeit again overturned on appeal.
“I didn’t get away with it, but I had to try,”
“You’re at a point where you really can see the tension points in society
and, of course, you sometimes have a greater or lesser ability to do
something about it. It’s the best job in the country….”
he says of that fight.
Now he’s handling cases out of the epic
dissolution of Bear Stearns, another about
mortgage securities that lie at the heart of the
current economic crisis, and even a few protest
cases still pending.
“You’re at a point where you really can see
the tension points in society and, of course, you
sometimes have a greater or lesser ability to do
something about it,” he says. “It’s the best job in
the country, as far as I’m concerned.”
Still, when asked what he has enjoyed the

most about his job, it isn’t the high profile cases,
or even the quieter ones. His first answer was
actually the people he has met and worked with,
starting with the various law clerks who have
served under him.
“That’s a marvelous relationship that for me
continues over the years,” he says. “It’s the kind
of relationship that is very rewarding, that’s on a
personal level.”
Among the most famous was Eliot Spitzer,
the man who went on to become New York’s
governor only to then resign in disgrace over a
prostitution scandal.
Yet Sweet doesn’t step back from that
friendship with his old law clerk, and still hangs
prominently in his office the photographs of him
swearing Spitzer in as governor. (Of Spitzer’s fall
from grace afterward, Sweet only says: “What
he did to himself is a tragedy.”)
He now is in what is termed senior status
on the bench, scaling back his caseload a little
to afford him time to enjoy his other favorite
passions, skiing and ice dancing at his second
home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Yes, ice dancing. Sweet started a decade
ago, joining his wife, Adele, an accomplished
ice skater in her youth. Now he’s getting pretty
accomplished himself, not to mention reaping
the health benefits.
“I have to think there are some new synapses
firing,” he says.
He also serves on the board of trustees of
the Graduate School of Management and Urban
Studies at the New School for Social Research
in New York City.
And for all those accomplishments, he harks
back to his start at Taft, where he was a monitor,
member of the debate team, and played football
and hockey.
He has maintained close ties with the school
as an alumnus, trustee and parent, with three of
his children attending: Robert ’68, Ames ’72
and Eliza ’80. In 1985, he won Taft’s highest
award, the Citation of Merit.
But Sweet also says Taft helped plant the
roots to the career that would take him to the
center of society’s great debates.
“At this level, the law is not a question of
just looking it up in the books,” he says. “You
can make a rational and acceptable argument
on both sides, that’s why it’s before you. The
question is how do you make those decisions.
“And quite honestly it goes back to the
Taft School, to the basic principles and precepts
you acquired over your life. When you
have these difficult things to decide, you repair
to that value system.
“One of the reasons I continue to do this is
that I want to keep alive that value system I believe
in. I want to get those values out there, and
let my opinion compete with somebody else’s.
And if it differs with somebody else’s, that’s fine,
that’s healthy.”
John Mooney ’78 is a freelance writer in New Jersey.
He covered education for the Newark Star-Ledger for
the last 10 years, and since leaving the Star-Ledger,
his work has appeared in the New York Times.
“At this level,
the law is not
a question of
just looking
it up in the
books. You can
make a rational
and acceptable
argument on both
sides, that’s why
it’s before you.
The question is
how do you make
those decisions.”

greener going

forward
laws to protect
the planet are
set to broaden
By Liz Barratt-Brown ’77
a scientist on the board of the natural
resources defense Council, george Woodwell has
long battled for action on global warming� recently,
i asked him how he stays so cheerful� not missing a
beat, he said� “there is no substitute for optimism�
if you can see a way forward, you can be optimistic�”
I’ve worked in the environmental field for almost thirty years and it is
sometimes hard to feel optimistic. Changes to our planet have accelerated
rapidly during this short period of time: global warming, fisheries
collapse, water scarcity, the list goes on, but I have never failed to see a
way forward. Sometimes it is a state or nation with an innovative policy.
Sometimes it is incremental progress at the global level. Oftentimes, it
is inspired by the campaign of one or two intrepid souls. But now we
are running out of time and we urgently need to see action at all levels,
simultaneously working to better protect the planet.
This imperative doesn’t seem to be lost on our new president. In
his acceptance speech and inaugural address, the president referred
to our “planet in peril” as one of his top concerns and has
consistently listed addressing global warming and energy
reform at the top of his policy objectives. But he also
clearly believes that doing right by the planet and generations
to come will reap immediate benefits as well.
The stimulus bill and his budget invest in a nascent
energy “revolution” to get us out of the economic—
as well as planetary—mess we are in. Environmental
and energy policies are no longer sidebar issues, but
have moved into a center role where initiatives on
clean energy, technological innovation, and job
creation are meshed into one to meet multiple
policy goals.
A good example is the stimulus bill,
passed in mid-February. The bill has
nearly $80 billion in renewable energy
and efficiency spending, a full tenth
of the overall package, which represents
the biggest injection of federal
support for transforming the production
and use of energy in our
history. It will help us grow this
sector, it will help us cut our reliance
on foreign oil (which, by the
way, costs us $700 billion in borrowed
money every year) and it will

help us cut the pollution that causes global
warming. A huge chunk of this funding
will go to weatherize millions of American
homes and green federal buildings, employing
people in “green collar” jobs who have
lost their job in the traditional construction
industry. Another example is the president’s
federal budget, which contains, for the first
time, estimates for proceeds from a “carbon
cap”—a cap on absolute levels of pollution
that puts a price on the remaining carbon
dioxide emissions. The proceeds will fund
renewable energy, health care, tax breaks
and other items (which we want more of)
and help discourage pollution (which we
want less of).
Next, the president and Congress will
focus on legislation that will set up this
“cap and invest” system. The U.S. faces
twin imperatives—getting domestic legislation
passed and moving a global agreement
forward that bring about steep reductions.
The good news is that already 1,000 U.S.
mayors and half the states have put in place
their own global warming plans. It will still
be a huge fight but it feels like the ground
is shifting in our favor—even in these difficult
economic times. Globally it will also
take unprecedented leadership. Over 15
years ago, the U.S. ratified the world’s first
treaty on climate change after the Rio Earth
Summit. Over ten years ago, a “protocol”
was added to this treaty calling on developed
countries to take the first steps in reducing
greenhouse gas pollution. Sadly, there has
been little real progress towards reducing pollution
to below 1990 levels—the stated goal
of the protocol—partly because the U.S., the
emitter of 25 percent of the world’s global
warming pollution, refused to act. Now the
22 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
U.S. must show that we are prepared to do
our part (and that we believe it is an economic
plus to act) and bring along critical
countries such as China and India.
What’s required is nothing short of
changing the very way we have powered
our society over the last couple of centuries.
We don’t have much time to mull it
all over either. Scientists warn that we have
less than a decade to start reducing the pollution
that causes global warming if we are
to stave off the worst impacts. Certainly a
world perched on the edge of catastrophic
melting of our poles makes the bank bailout
look like small potatoes.
But then I think of Woodwell’s comment
and reflect a little on where we have
come from and what I have seen work. I
started my career advocating for acid rain
legislation. Acid rain is mainly a side effect
of burning coal, and it was poisoning the
lakes and streams as well as causing other
damage to huge portions of the eastern
United States and Canada. In 1990, the
U.S. adopted legislation that cut acid rain
pollution in half by requiring that “scrubbers”
be installed on coal burning furnaces
and put in place the first “trading system”
for pollution reductions.
On the global scale, chemicals used
mainly in refrigeration were literally eating
away at the world’s protective ozone layer,
critical for shielding the planet from cancer
The U.S. faces twin imperatives—getting domestic
legislation passed and moving a global agreement
forward that bring about steep reductions.
causing UV radiation. In the late 1980s, the
United Nations shepherded through a global
agreement known as the Montreal Protocol
that phased out the use of chemicals responsible
for the damage. Less harmful chemicals
were developed and the hole has been gradually
closing ever since.
…doing
right by the
planet and
generations
to come
will reap
immediate
benefits as
well.

The backdrop to these two success stories
was a period of intense national and global
law making in the 1970s. After the first Earth
Day, our major environmental statutes were
passed in rapid succession—the Clean Air
Act in 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972,
the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the Safe
Drinking Water Act in 1974, the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976,
and the Superfund in 1980. In 1972, the
first Earth Summit was held in Stockholm,
Sweden. Many of our environmental treaties
were adopted shortly thereafter. NRDC and
other national groups were formed during
this period—NRDC in the dining hall of Yale
Law School—and now employ thousands of
advocates working on behalf of people and
the environment. Thousands more form a vibrant
grass-roots movement that continually
challenges the status quo.
It is hard to imagine what our country
would be like if we had not passed these
statutes or invested in building this cadre of
environmental activists in their support. I’ve
traveled to many developing countries where
the air is unbreathable and the water undrinkable.
I’ve ridden in “tuk tuks”—taxis in
Bangkok—whose gas tanks could explode at
any moment. And, tragically, many environmental
activists have lost their lives for lack of
the civil liberties and democratic protections.
We can’t protect ourselves against these harms
without the power of the law and rules.
That system of laws and rules, and
fundamentally behavior at all levels, is
broadening out dramatically and will be
tested like never before. The statutes of the
1970s seem almost quaint in their focus on
solving problems by using technology to
reduce pollution at the end of a pipe. As
Thomas Friedman said in his March 7 New
York Times column, we are facing the point
of inflection where both the Wall Street
economy and the earth’s natural systems are
hitting the wall at the same time. Given that
stark reality, the spotlight must now be on
changing the very way we produce energy
and food, and how much we consume.
Instead of making a better Cadillac,
we have to throw it out for the Prius—or
better yet, for high-speed rail and walkable
…the spotlight must now be on changing the very way we
produce energy and food, and how much we consume.
communities. We need to have more “smart
growth” and greener buildings. Companies
should add photovoltaic panels and earthen
roofs to reduce stormwater runoff and
to better insulate. We’ll need to enact new
treaties to control mercury and to protect
the arctic as the melting ice opens it up for
shipping and resource extraction. There is
much to be done, but already there is a beehive
of activity that the president, Congress
and other nations can magnify with leadership
and the right policies.
And while there is a dire imperative to
these issues, there is also a huge opportunity
to do things better and more fairly. Perhaps
we’ll even be inspired to think more deeply
about what matters most to us and what we
plan to leave for the next generation and for
other co-inhabitants on this miraculous planet.
As Woodwell said, there is no substitute
for optimism. That is a refreshing idea here in
Washington, D.C., at the start of 2009.
Liz Barratt-Brown’77, a senior attorney with
the Natural Resources Defense Council’s
International Program, has spent the last 25
years working on a number of environmental
initiatives, most recently defending Canada’s
boreal forest from strip mining for oil in the
Alberta “tar sands.” She is also co-chair
of the Center for a New American Dream
(www.newdream.org). You can read her blog
at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lizbb/.

The Freedom To
People need freedom
to take responsibility.
Accountability should be based on
accomplishment, not bureaucratic
conformity. We must embrace
human differences, not try
to stamp people out of
the same legal mold.
Make a Difference By Philip K. Howard ’66

A
t lunch one day with a close
friend, a respected journalist, i
mentioned that a broad coali-
tion had come together behind
the idea of creating expert health courts� By
making justice reliable, i explained, doctors
would no longer have the incentive to squan-
der billions in defensive medicine� With an
expert court that could sort through the com-
plexities of medical judgment, doctors would
feel more comfortable being open about un-
certainties and errors� patients injured by mis-
takes would get paid more quickly and reliably�
We’ve asked law to
do too much—trying
to enforce fairness in
daily relations is not
freedom, but a form of
utopia that predictably
degenerates into
squealing demands for
me, me, me.
Eyes flashing, she interrupted. “Who would guarantee
that these judges weren’t in the doctors’ pockets?” I
suggested that the judges could be appointed through a
neutral screening panel. The retort was immediate: “Who
will appoint the screening panel?” Reputation and professional
character should stand for something, I suggested.
After all, we can’t abdicate responsibility just because that
involves the exercise of human judgment. As I talked, the
journalist—remember, this is a friend—looked at me as if
I’d been caught cheating.
There’s a lot going on in that little exchange. The distrust
of authority is palpable. The core assumption is that
society can be organized without human intervention. The
idea of a judge making legal rulings on standards of care
struck her as an invitation to abuse, a form of tyranny instead
of a key ingredient of the rule of law.
This is the mind-set of our time. No idea is more
unpalatable to the modern mind than giving someone
authority to make choices that affect other people.
That’s why we have law, or so we believe—to dictate
or oversee almost any life activity. Law, we think,
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 25

should protect people from the judgment of others.
Our fears of human authority are hardly irrational,
particularly in an anonymous, interdependent society.
Decisions by judges and officials affect our lives in countless
ways—the air we breathe, the scope of our health care, the
fairness of justice, our careers, the success of our schools,
and the safety of toys. Who are these people? They can do
their jobs well, or poorly. A judge can be fair, or one-sided.
Perhaps it is natural that we want a thick covering of law to
insulate us from their choices and, just in case, a legal selfhelp
kit if some decision emerges that we don’t like.
Now that we have forty years of experience with this
expansive concept of law, however, we can safely conclude
that it wasn’t a good innovation. The goal was to protect
against unfair authority, but the effect was to preclude fair
authority. As an unintended part of the bargain, we lost
much of our freedom.
A crowded society can’t operate unless officials have the
authority to make common choices—drawing the boundaries
of lawsuits, for example, and maintaining order in the
classroom. Our freedom depends on these choices—to allow
our children to focus on learning, and to let us go through
the day without walking on eggshells. The people making
these choices are not the enemy, but our surrogates. Many
of them are the people next door—teachers, principals,
counselors, ministers, nurses, doctors, managers, foremen,
and inspectors, as well as public officials and judges. We
need them to do their best, not be paralyzed by law.
There’s a lot of talk about the decline of leadership in
our society. America lacks leaders not because of a genetic
flaw in our generation, at least not one that anyone has
discovered. We lack leaders because we’ve basically made
leadership unlawful. America doesn’t even allow a teacher to
run a classroom, or a judge to dismiss a $54 million claim
for a lost pair of pants. Washington is legally dead, unable
to breathe any sense into outmoded laws, and unable to prevent
special interests from feeding off its carcass.
26 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
Social commentators also note the decline in civic
involvement. Robert Bellah finds that freedom has been
redefined—instead of the power to make a difference,
Americans increasingly view freedom as the right to be left
alone. Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone talks about the
loss of “social capital” when people no longer participate
in community activities. Apathy in America is not our
natural state, however. It too is caused, at least in part, by
a sense of powerlessness. What good are the parents’ ideas
if the bureaucracy prevents the principal from acting on
them? Why bother to get involved in politics when nothing
sensible seems possible? “Each individual feels helpless
to affect anything beyond the immediate environment,”
Professor Warren Bennis observes, “and so retreats into an
ever-contracting private world.”
Law is supposed to be a structure that promotes our
freedom. It does this by setting boundaries that define an
open field of freedom. Instead law has moved in on daily
life, becoming the arbiter of potentially every disagreement
in a free society. We’ve asked law to do too much—trying
… law is only a tool, made by humans and
only as good as the humans who are using it.
Law can’t make any final decisions… .
For anything to work properly (including law),
humans on the spot must make choices.
to enforce fairness in daily relations is not freedom, but a
form of utopia that predictably degenerates into squealing
demands for me, me, me.
We need to snap out of our legal trance. Freedom is
not defined by fairness—that’s hopeless, because everyone
has a different view, usually tilted toward himself. Freedom
is defined by outside boundaries of what is legally unfair.
There’s a difference: Setting outer boundaries allows people
to make free choices, whether it’s running the classroom,
managing the department, or putting an arm around a
crying child. Bring law into daily disagreements, and you
might as well give a legal club to the most unreasonable
and selfish person in the enterprise.
The dream was to create a legal system that was
self-executing and no longer subject to racism and other
societal abuses. The goal was understandable. But law is
only a tool, made by humans and only as good as the hu-

mans who are using it. Law can’t make any final decisions,
at least not without unleashing all the idiocies of central
planning. For anything to work properly (including law),
humans on the spot must make choices.
Still, you might say, legal process can make people justify
the fairness of their decisions. That’s what due process
is all about, putting government to the proof before it takes
away our “life, liberty or property.” Why not use due process
to guarantee fairness throughout society? That’s what we’ve
been told is innovative about modern law—make people
in authority justify their choices to whoever’s affected.
Typically American, we think we can have it all. Let’s have
law everywhere and freedom too. Of course teachers, counselors,
officials, and others can make decisions. They just
need to justify their decisions in a legal proceeding.
Justification is now part of our daily culture. We demand
it of others and expect it of ourselves. You’d better
not make a decision that affects someone unless you’re prepared
to justify why it’s fair.
But most sensible decisions, although readily secondguessed,
can rarely be justified in a legal sense. How do
you prove that $54 million is an absurd amount for a pair
of pants? It just is. How do you prove that sending Johnny
home for misbehavior is fair? Well, I’m the principal here,
and I know Johnny, and I think it’s fair. People just have to
decide. These judgments can be wrong or unfair, and that’s
why we can give others the authority to overrule these decisions.
But rarely can people prove the wisdom or fairness
of their choices in any objective way.
The confusion of good judgment
with legal proof may be the most
insidious fallacy of modern law.
The overlay of law destroys the human
instinct needed to get things done.
The confusion of good judgment with legal proof may
be the most insidious fallacy of modern law. Due process
was not designed as a litmus test for good judgment—it
was designed as a high hurdle that the state had to cross
before taking away a citizen’s life, liberty, or property. We
shouldn’t be surprised that expanding due process to daily
choices discourages the choices needed to get through
the day. Putting daily decisions through the legal wringer
does not make the decisions better. It gives us parents who
make legal threats over bad grades, and officials who put
handcuffs on five-year-olds.
The overlay of law destroys the human instinct needed
to get things done. Accomplishment is personal. Anyone
who has felt the pride of a job well done knows this. The
power of freedom, as well as the joy of personal fulfillment,
comes from spontaneity and invention, not logic
and proof. Somehow we must learn to appreciate again the
complexity of human judgment, and redirect our fears toward
judging people and their decisions, not trying to come
up with a system that is better than mere mortals.
Reprinted from Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans
From Too Much Law by Philip K. Howard ’66. © 2009 by Philip
K. Howard. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc. Howard is the best-selling author of The Death
of Common Sense and founder and chair of Common Good,
a nonprofit, nonpartisan legal reform coalition dedicated to
restoring common sense to America. For more information,
visit www.CommonGood.org.
Taft Bulletin Spring 2009 27

From the arChiVeS
ith the season upon us, it seemed
like a good moment to bring out these unusual
and delightful shots of Horace Taft and
the faculty baseball team as they took on the
school’s Second Team one Friday afternoon
in May 1905.
The school’s baseball diamond, recently
carved out of the farm fields behind the
Warren House, did not yet have a proper
team dugout or seating for fans. Visible are
the horse-drawn carriages that doubled as
grandstands and brought “a large crowd of
town people…and enthusiastic admirers
(who) cheered the faculty.”
In those days, apparently, only serious
28 Taft Bulletin Spring 2009
the Second Baseball team vs. the Faculty
enthusiasts owned a baseball cap, and wearing
a fedora and a bow tie as team gear was
not unthinkable or even comical. Of course,
the student Second Team was properly outfitted
in uniforms. Unfortunately no pictures of
that team survive.
The Papyrus reported a “very close match
up to the eighth inning,” when the Second
Team scored five runs to surge ahead of their
elders for a 14–9 victory. However, it went on,
“the feature of the game was Mr. Taft’s safe hit
in the fifth inning.” The students’ win was the
first in many years of the annual competition.
—Alison Gilchrist, Leslie D. Manning Archives
mr. taft at bat,
wilson “Skinny”
eyre, t ’05, catcher.
the image is from
fragments of a
scrapbook in the
archives, provenance
unknown.
INSET: Members of the
Faculty Team, from left:
Headmaster Horace Taft,
Judson Dutcher (math
& science), Sydney B.
Morton (Latin), Andrew
D. McIntosh (English &
history), Rev. Herbert N.
Cunningham (chaplain),
Olin C. Joline (Greek),
Charles H. Ward
(English), Paul M. Welton
(history & physical
culture), M. Buckingham.

m The new west dining hall, which faces
Mac House, gets insulation on its roof.
Note the HDT tower in the background
and the windows to the old study hall/
Potter’s art room on the right.
. A view of the project from the west.
The tower in the foreground marks the
new entrance to Main Hall. The bricked
area on the left is the former “kitchen
corridor.” The main level of that wing
will become the new north dining hall,
with the Moorhead Academic Center
located above.
The beep-beep-beep of construction
vehicles and the zip-zip of steel being
welded have become part of the daily
score that orchestrates our days on campus.
With all this activity at the heart of
the school, the community quickly adjusted
to the disruption that began last
summer, only looking over the fences
when something major catches our eye…
when sparks from the welding fly high on
a snowy day, when the roof is covered by
huge sheets of metal that catch the sun,
or when the building is draped like some
art installation by Christo to keep the
fireproofing from freezing.
Although we still have a year to go
before we are completely moved in to
the new dining facilities, each new phase
builds anticipation as we catch glimpses
of this grand old building’s second birth.
—Julie Reiff, editor
on
campus
construction
update
For more information on the project, visit
www.TaftSchool.org/about/construction.asp,
or check out the article “Serving Up Space
at the Heart of the School” in the summer
2008 Taft Bulletin.
PH o t o g r A P H s b y ye e-fu n yin

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