District Judge Jane Shuler Gray speaks at Session 56 Graduation Ceremony
District Judge Jane Shuler Gray receives a plaque from site manager Frank Taylor for recognition as the guest speaker for the center's 56th graduating class.
Judge Gray's Speech to Session 56
There is a well-known saying: “If you want peace, work for justice.” With only a few exceptions, I expect that most people would say they want peace in the world. Yet in this day and age peace seems as elusive as ever. It sometimes seems that the peoples of this world identify not in the commonalities of their lives but instead too many of us are drawing lines of distinctions and differences. We say: “I am Christian—you are Jewish. I am Muslim and you are Hindu. I am black and you are white. I speak German and you speak Farsi.”
The first ILEA class was started one week before the time when the investment in differences reached its logical conclusion—that was, of course, one week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Yet here you are today, officers in the justice systems of your countries—Cambodia, Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China—seeking to learn from one another and share information with officers in the justice systems of the United States and many other countries. To date, students from 71 countries have attended ILEA in Roswell. Classes have been taught in 26 separate languages. Everyone who has come here could say: “Look at all our differences.” Yet through ILEA you have said: “Look at what we can do together and with each other’s help.” Surely the ideals of ILEA stand in stark opposition to the events of 9/11, because ILEA brings us together to work for justice—and thereby to work for peace.
I stand here before you today as another participant in the field of justice. As a judge in a state court of New Mexico, I hear cases involving crimes that can range up to murder. My role is to see that justice is done for all who appear in court, defendant and victim alike. I am aware that most of you are involved in law enforcement or closely related fields. Past ILEA students have included the chief of environmental law enforcement for Brazil, an art theft investigator from Poland and the head of the Colombia national police human rights office. Yet our goals, yours and mine, are the same–to work for justice.
I will confess to you that other than what I have read in a high school geography book, I am not as well informed about the cultures, geography and histories of your home countries as I ought to be. I am so long out of school that I am embarrassed to tell you that too much of my world revolved around my law practice and now my courtroom. My world has become the rat-race of my job. But seeing your faces before me inspires me. My stepfather worked for the United Nations and traveled the world. He always set for me the example to enjoy this marvelous, diverse world and wonderful people that populate it. And you have paid all of us the great compliment of your company and warm relations.
I must also confess to you that with every class of ILEA students, I worry about what you must think when you make that trip into New Mexico, driving down from Albuquerque to Roswell. I worry that in seeing what lies between the two cities must make you think you have come to the most Godforsaken patch of land that exists anywhere in the world! But I also hope that once you have arrived in Roswell and met its citizens, you know that you are so very welcome and that we are here to make you feel at home.
I applaud your participation in the ILEA program. You are essential to the systems of justice in your respective countries. I thank you for coming to my country to seek information. I thank you for sharing your ideas with us and your classmates from countries around the world.
And so now you will return home. To apply the lessons you have learned and to use the connections you have made here to form a network of justice systems that spans throughout the world.
I will leave you with something that inspired me as I was considering what I was to say to you today. Last week I was in my church. There was a prayer that I am sure I have said hundreds of times. It had become so ordinary to me that I was no longer really listening and hearing those words in my heart. As it turns out, it is a prayer that I would happily say for you—not as a Christian praying for another Christian or a Muslim or any other person of any other faith. Instead it is a prayer that a law enforcement officer would say for his brothers and sisters in the law enforcement system. That prayer asks that God “guide the people of all nations in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good.” And so ladies and gentlemen, we here in Roswell, New Mexico and ILEA, will keep you in our hearts and minds, knowing that we will always have a connection and bond with you; we know that you will follow the ways of justice and peace; and we here today honor you because you serve the common good of the people of this world.