The chief justice of Massachusetts' highest court, who authored the November 2003 majority opinion to permit gay marriage in the state, delivered the University's 54th commencement address to 998 seniors and graduate students in a packed Gosman Sports and Convocation Center Sunday.In a speech that seemed to answer accusations that she legislates from the bench, Margaret Marshall, a former anti-apartheid activist from South Africa, defended what she called an "assault on an independent judiciary, the gatekeeper of our constitutional freedoms."

"I worry when people of influence use vague, loaded terms like 'judicial activism' to skew public debate or to intimidate judges," she said. "I worry when judicial independence is seen as a problem to be solved and not a value to be cherished."

The court's 4-3 ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, filed by New England's Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, was the first of its kind by an appellate court. The case has been hailed as a milestone by gay marriage proponents, but has been used by opponents to fuel criticism of "activist judges," whom President Bush denounced in his State of the Union address last February.

Though Marshall did not mention the gay-marriage case specifically, she forcefully defended the judiciary's authority, saying that "trust in the integrity of our judicial system" has maintained "the security of law and order."

"Gratuitous attacks on judges undermine that trust," she said. [See excerpts from her speech, next page]

Tom Brokaw, the former anchor of NBC Nightly News, also received an honorary degree. [See story, next page]

The applause he received from the audience of 7,000 rivaled Marshall's.

In introducing Marshall, John Hose, the executive assistant to University President Jehuda Reinharz, called her "a hero to many."

"When same sex couples in Massachusetts sought to marry, you saw their cause as a struggle for equal rights under the law," he said.

His introduction, like Marshall's speech to follow, was met by lengthy applause.

Marshall opened her speech by first commenting on the blue and white balloons hanging from the ceiling that later rained on graduates. "I've never been in a convention center that has balloons of this particular color," she said. "I'm looking forward to no red states here."

Invoking both Brandeis' history of social justice and her own experience campaigning against apartheid, she told the graduates that "small acts, discussion with neighbors, a letter to the editor, every form of everyday civic participation can accomplish great things."

Marshall and Brokaw accepted their degrees alongside four others: Ha Jin, a 1992 Ph.D. recipient and two-time winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for his novels Waiting and War Trash; Roderick MacKinnon '78, the winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for chemistry; Lily Safra, a philanthropist and widow of the Brazilian banker Edmond Safra, whose donation will fund a new campus arts building; and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Malden.

The ceremony also featured Stephen B. Kay, the chairman of the University's board of trustees, who warned graduates that they "are going out into a world that is in ethical turmoil, a world that has yet to agree on standards of conduct."

"Be careful what you say to people, be careful what you say in the telephone, and be especially careful of what you do or say on your computer," he said. "Conversations are routinely recorded and e-mail monitored to a degree that would have been considered unethical and probably illegal only a few years ago...until the world settles down, walk carefully and follow the good instincts that have been honed, I know, at Brandeis."

University President Jehuda Reinharz's address, however, carried a lighter tone.

"I, for one, will never forget this class, which has reminded me how to use e-mail properly," he said to much applause and laughter, referring to the now-infamous tale of his reply to Brian Snyder's '05 e-mail that criticized the selection of Marshall as the keynote speaker.

Erica Lemansky, a former Student Union vice president, addressed the audience on behalf of the class of 2005. Speaking directly after the conference of degrees, she drew from collective class experience.

"You will always remember who you sat with and watched the news coverage of Sept. 11, only three weeks into your college career. You will also remember what it was like to be in Waltham when the Pats won the Super Bowl, when the Red Sox won the World Series and Bush won re-election," she said, receiving loud cheers-and boos following the mention of Bush's re-election.

"We are the class that will remember when students held all their club meetings in Usdan and their study groups in the library, when the midnight buffet was held in Sherman, when there was no such thing as a midyear class, when freshman lived in East and Shapiro and the Village didn't exist."

Reinharz and others emphasized that though the graduates' tenure on the Brandeis campus may have come to an end, their connections to Brandeis will remain strong.

"From this day forward, you are responsible for Brandeis, just as we were responsible for you when you were here," he said. "Each of you is now part of Brandeis, part of its history, part of its future, part of Brandeis' record of accomplishment."

-Jacob Olidort contributed

to this report