I met Terry Eastland soon after we had both joined the Justice Department during the Reagan administration in the early 1980s, so we were friends for almost exactly four decades. He and I were fellow Texans and appreciated not only Ronald Reagan but Southern cuisine together; to be sure, Terry’s expertise on barbecue in particular was deeper than mine, no doubt helped by the fact that his wife, Jill, was from North Carolina. Terry’s southern roots were manifest in other ways: He was devoted to the Atlanta Braves, and sold encyclopedias and/or Bibles door to door — I forget which, and maybe it was both. He went to Vanderbilt and Oxford, studied the classics, and eventually became a journalist.
Readers of National Review knew Terry as a distinguished and stalwart conservative intellectual. He was the author of numerous books and innumerable articles, and high on the masthead of the American Spectator and Weekly Standard, among other publications. He was not a lawyer, but wrote beautifully and wisely about a range of legal issues, including separation of powers, religious freedom, and equal protection. We worked together most recently at the Center for Equal Opportunity, where Terry continued his lifelong fight for colorblind equal opportunity.
Terry was one of the most pleasant and thoughtful people I ever met, a learned and genuine Christian in every sense of the word. No surprise then that he was also devoted to his family, helping to care for his mother and mother-in-law and mentally challenged sister, as well as being a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. Jill send me a text this morning: “Terry passed away gently early this morning. He is with his Savior.”
