HIGH POINT, N.C., Sept. 11, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- High Point University held a ribbon-cutting ceremony today that included a special appearance from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito as HPU celebrated the grand opening of the new building for the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law.
Alito joined the ceremony remotely while dozens of local, state and federal judges gathered with HPU faculty, staff and students to mark the official opening of a new three-story, 77,500-square-foot building that is now the permanent home for the law school. It was the second time this week that HPU celebrated the grand opening of a new academic building on campus, continuing the university’s transformational growth.
On Wednesday, HPU President Nido Qubein held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the large building that houses the Workman School of Dental Medicine. Twenty-four hours later, he officially opened the doors to the new law school building, which is the same size as the dental school building and stands next to it on a section of campus known as the Innovation Corridor.
“It’s amazing that on this campus dreams come to be. The art of the possible is here and alive,” Qubein said. “Yesterday we dedicated this beautiful building for the Workman School of Dental Medicine, and today we’re dedicating this magnificent law school building — magnificent not only with its brick and mortar but magnificent because of what it will do in instilling in the hearts and minds and souls of future attorneys the true meaning of what it is to be an American and the true meaning of what it means to be a person of service.”
Qubein told the audience that HPU can experience both “sadness and happiness at the same time” and celebrate the opening of the new law school building while remembering those who lost their lives on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Ken and Jana Kahn are big advocates of HPU and have given nearly $36 million to the university. In 2022, they gifted HPU $30 million to establish the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law, which welcomed its inaugural class of 72 students in the fall of 2024. Its second cohort of 75 students started taking classes inside the new building in August.
“Each morning when I walk into this building, I am in awe, truly in awe, at the beauty of this building,” said Mark Martin, founding dean of the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law. “This is the most beautiful law building in America.”
Following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the large crowd in attendance gathered inside the 120-seat courtroom and two smaller courtrooms near it to listen as Alito spoke about the virtues of the new law school while appearing virtually as a guest at the event.
Speaking at length, Alito praised the law school for instilling in its new students the importance of forming a good character and for emphasizing “legal practice as a calling, not just a career.” He added that HPU’s faculty that includes distinguished judges will serve students well with “its rich and diverse insights into our how our legal and justice systems work and into how students can virtuously shape the path of the law.”
“My hope is that this law school will produce lawyers who always act, as Lincoln wrote in his masterly second inaugural, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all and with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,’” Alito said. “I wish Dean Martin and the entire community of the Kahn Law School a successful first year in its lovely new building.”
Attachments
Alex Abrams High Point University 3369517926 aabrams1@highpoint.edu
