The Class of 1968 Returns to Syracuse Law to Celebrate President Biden

Syracuse University College of Law celebrated a historic event with the unveiling of an official portrait of Joseph R. Biden Jr. L’68, H’09, the 46^th President of the United States, now hanging permanently in the Bernard R. and Carol K. Kossar Library Reading Room.

The Portrait Unveiling was preceded by a joyful Class of 1968 reunion lunch, which welcomed President Biden back among his classmates and introduced two students who embody the class’s enduring investment in the next generation: 3L Gabby Kehoe, recipient of the Class of 1968 Scholarship Fund, and 3L Lacey Caputo, the Beau Biden Memorial Scholar.

In meeting these students, the reunion achieved its most meaningful purpose — connecting a class that helped shape the law with the young men and women who will carry it forward.

Dean Terence Lau L’98 welcomed President Biden and his classmates in a speech that transported the room back to the spring of 1968 and the world they were preparing to enter as new lawyers. The Vietnam War raged on, and in the span of a single month, President Johnson announced he would not seek reelection, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Fair Housing Act was signed into law.

“You were young. You were about to become lawyers. You had your whole lives ahead of you,” Lau reflected. “But the world outside these walls was on fire.”

Yet the class graduated, went out into that world, and many built careers dedicated to service, leadership, and justice. Lau drew a direct line from that turbulent moment to today, noting that current students are asking the same questions the Class of 1968 once asked: What kind of lawyers does this moment need us to be?

His answer, he said, was already written in their lives. “You show up. You do the work. You use your training not just to argue cases, but to build something.”

Lau also offered special thanks to Syracuse University Trustee William Brodsky ’65, L’68, whose dedication to honoring his classmate and their shared alma mater brought the project to life.

Speaking to his classmates, Biden said, “Since the time I left Syracuse, life has handed me significant highlights and very low blows. The Syracuse community has been with me through it all.”

The 17 members of the Class of 1968 who returned to Syracuse Law made this occasion more than a ceremony. Graduating at one of the most consequential moments in modern American history, the class has maintained deep ties to Syracuse Law across six decades — returning not only to celebrate and support one of their own, but to mentor students and invest in the institution’s future.

Among those in attendance was Deborah Goldman L’68, who graduated as the only woman in her class. Today, 52% of Syracuse Law’s incoming Class of 2025 is female, and all four of the College of Law’s current student body presidents are women — a measure of how much, and how deliberately, the institution has changed.

For the Class of 1968, the reunion was a reminder that the bonds formed at Syracuse Law have proven as durable as the law itself.