In our cross-over thread here with Phi Beta Cons (see here, here, and here in chronological order), I can report that I’ve heard from a friend who is a Middlebury College alumnus that the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, in addition to visiting there to speak at least once, spent many summers vacationing in Vermont, and his daughter is married to a Middlebury faculty member. Who was the benefactor, and what exactly prompted the gift of a chair in Rehnquist’s name, I still don’t know for sure. But it’s a worthy honoring of a distinguished figure in our nation’s history, and it’s good to see the college resisting the tub-thumping of the advocates of “tolerance.”