James E. Clayton *56

James Clayton, The Washington Post’s first full-time U.S. Supreme Court reporter, died Oct. 16, 2017, at age 87.

Clayton graduated from the University of Illinois in 1953, and in 1956 earned an MPA from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. the Post hired him that year.

In 1960, the Post sent Clayton to Harvard Law School for a six-month primer on constitutional law. He was honored for his Supreme Court coverage by the American Bar Association.

In 1964, he wrote The Making of Justice: The Supreme Court in Action. In a New York Times review, Columbia University law professor Louis Lusky wrote, “The book must be recognized as a new approach to the pinnacle of the journalist’s art.”

Clayton was noted for his Washington Post editorials vigorously opposing President Nixon’s nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court because of his pro-segregation and white-supremacist views. Clayton received the George Polk Award for his successful editorial efforts against the nomination.

Clayton was predeceased in 2014 by his wife, Elise (a Harvard law graduate, women’s-rights activist, and a two-time Virginia state legislator). He is survived by two sons, including Jonathan ’87; and four granddaughters, including Madeleine ’17.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.