After a half-hour spent discussing tuition, scholarship drives and alumni giving, Baylor University’s 14th president lit up with joy when I asked if his inauguration today had originally been tied to U.S. Constitution Day or was merely a happy coincidence.

Answer: It was coincidence, but one that inaugural planners smartly played upon once they realized it was also Constitution Day, complete with a symposium on the U.S. Supreme Court plus the handing out of pocket copies of the Constitution at today’s inaugural ceremony.

As Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett notes in his guest column today, Ken Starr is a fervent devotee of the U.S. Constitution. Mention it and he swells with pride and enthusiasm, as if the idea links him with our nation’s insightful Founding Fathers. And I suppose it does.

He revels, too, in the campaign by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stressing the need for more civics classes in our schools to instill more appreciative, responsible understanding of our citizenship.

In these polarized times, many claim to have read the Constitution. But when pressed, too many show little or no understanding of this sacred document. It’s disheartening, especially as rhetoric on the subject rips we the people apart.

Ironically, the Constitution was written partly to hold us together, to make us stronger. Yet some today embrace the parts they like, dispense with the rest as if irrelevant.

Starr, who served on the pivotal U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., was solicitor general for President George H.W. Bush and was even eyed for the U.S. Supreme Court, is proud the U.S. Constitution has served its people longer than any other constitution in any other land.

“I think it’s because of our culture,” he said. “The culture of America is a culture that believes in the rule of law. People will say what they will about lawyers. Abraham Lincoln loved to give speeches about how lawyers are criticized. But (Alexis) de Tocqueville saw, in “Democracy of America,” that one of the fundamental differences in this republic and anything that existed in Europe at the time was the ascendancy of lawyers as a class, as a governing class, because we are a rule-of-law people.”

I asked about some Americans invoking the Constitution to make cases for causes that our founders likely never intended.

“I think it is a very good thing we are seeing serious conversations about the Constitution and whether there are limits on governmental power,” he said. “And I think we would all agree that, of course, there are.”

But he laments the ugly rancor of our age.

“What I think we’re losing and have lost to a great extent is a culture of civility,” Starr said. “There has been a great decline in this regard in the United States over the last 20 years or 25 years. One can have a reasonable disagreement without all the yelling and screaming.”

Which suggests what kind of president Starr will be — one who values history, civility and the constitutional fiber that holds us all together.

RELATED SEARCHES

• Justice Don R. Willett, guest columnist: Online resource helps us better understand our Constitution
• EDITORIAL: Ken Starr's inauguration as Baylor's president today should mark times of high expectations, unity