In 1957, 6-year-old Bernice Bouie Donald started first grade in rural DeSoto County, Mississippi. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down school segregation three years earlier in Brown v. Board of Education, the young girl’s educational reality remained unchanged: Her all-Black school was a two-room cinderblock building with no indoor plumbing, and her books were hand-me-downs discarded by white students.

Donald went on to have a decadeslong career as a federal judge, and at a recent UC Berkeley Law event, she shared her personal memories to highlight a sobering truth: The rule of law is not self-executing. For the promise of Brown to reach her classroom, Donald explained, it required "extreme moral courage" from judges who faced bombings, social ostracization and death threats to enforce the law. Without that bravery, she warned, the law is "simply words on a piece of paper."

This ongoing challenge was at the heart of a Dec. 5, 2025, panel discussion featuring Donald and a group of legal experts. Together, the panelists discussed the rising tide of personal and political threats facing the judiciary, exploring how modern pressures — from social media harassment to political tribalism — threaten the independence necessary for a fair society.

The event was part of “Conversations in Civil Justice,” a webinar series presented by UC Berkeley Law’s Civil Justice Research Initiative and co-sponsored by the Berkeley Judicial Institute. The series is supported by a gift from the American Association for Justice’s Robert L. Habush Endowment.

The panelists include:

Bernice Bouie Donald, a retired judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Philip Pro, a retired federal judge from the District of Nevada.
Amrit Singh, a professor of professional practice and faculty director of the Rule of Law Lab at New York University School of Law.
Jeremy Fogel (moderator), executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute and a retired federal judge from the Northern District of California.
Richard Jolly (moderator), professor at Southwestern Law School and senior fellow at the Civil Justice Research Initiative.

Watch a video of the discussion.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).

Music by HoliznaCC0.

Photo via Unsplash.

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The rule of law depends on the courage of judges