A Jukebox and My Law School Decision

💎 The song goes “Lord have mercy on a country girl, tryin’ to make a living in rhinestone world. It’s hard to be a diamond in rhinestone world.”

🎶 True story. I planned to go to the University of Colorado at Boulder for law school. The Natural Resources Law Center is the best in the country. I went out to visit and was hanging out in a Boulder bar when Dolly’s “Tennessee Homesick Blues” played on the jukebox.

🌄 It hit me. Boulder didn’t more people like, but my hometown of Knoxville sure did. I enrolled at UT College of Law and never looked back. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

🎙️I shared this story and many others today as I visited with students from the Environmental Law Organization at UT.

🌿 Being a 7th generation Tennesseean also instilled in me a deep environmental ethic. When you live so close to the Great Smoky Mountains, how could you NOT want to protect the great outdoors?

📙As part of the book tour of “Eco-Anxiety,” I connected with students about working on the Gore 2000 campaign, fighting for toxic chemical regulation in DC, and advocating for the protection of wild places as a Senate staffer.

🌎 My key message for these young people is that climate anxiety is real, that the constitution is just words on paper unless we agree to the social contract that supports our society and institutions, and that a legal education will continue to provide a clear framework for deep thinking, bold action, and creating a greener, healthier, future.

🎓 Never stop asking questions, researching, and uncovering important stories. I also mentioned my research into the first woman to graduate from UT Law when I a 2L. I found her by digging through the law library archives and old yearbooks. Maude Hughett, Class of 1909. My amazing class of 1999 commissioned her portrait, 100 years after she graduated! Laura Durbin Melanie Murry Tasha Blakney Richelle Moore (and so many others!!!) thank you for making this happen.