Mellor Delivers Scalia Law School Commencement Address

In May, IJ chairman of the board and co-founder Chip Mellor gave the 2017 commencement speech at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

In his speech, “The Opportunity Cost of Inertia,” Mellor told the graduates not to give up on their dreams because they face long odds:

When we started the Institute for Justice nearly 30 years ago, there were plenty of people . . . who expressed skepticism about the viability of such a different kind of public interest law firm. They cautioned that the goals were so lofty that failure was a real possibility, even likely. One friend went so far as to ask me why I thought I should be the one to try to change constitutional jurisprudence that had been entrenched over decades. My response was always the same. The need for constitutional constraints on government power has never been more urgent, so how can we not try to secure liberty, and no one else is doing what we propose, so why not me?

Mellor urged the class to be “entrepreneurs for liberty” and pressed them to break through the inertia of life and careers so they can say they made their lives happen, not just that they let their lives happen.