The following is an excerpt from Deborah Rhode’s new book Character, which she dedicated to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Thurgood Marshall cared about character. I was fortunate enough to observe that up close, beginning at our first meeting. Shortly after graduating from law school, I applied for one of his Supreme Court clerkships, and received an invitation for an interview. I was anxious beyond measure. Reading about his work during the nation’s early civil rights campaigns was a large part of why I went to law school. I never prepared more for anything than that interview. I read every major decision Marshall had written over the last decade, and much of what commentators had said about them. I did not know then what I learned later. Marshall used a committee of former clerks, who had become leading practitioners and academics, to screen his applicants and prepare a short list for him to interview. If you were on that list, you were viewed as qualified. The interview was about something else. At mine, Marshall began by skimming my resume, and then noting, “It says here that you graduated Phi Beta Kappa at Yale. What do women do with those gold Phi Beta Kappa keys?” That was not a question I had prepared for. But I didn’t want to make something up, so I hedged. “Well, I’m not sure.” He waited. All I could think of to add was that “I gave mine to my mother. I thought she deserved it at least as much as I did.” Marshall chuckled, and that was pretty much the end of the interview. I sobbed in the ladies room afterwards. It felt like I had come so close only to fail so miserably. But before I had time to leave the courthouse, I had a call from Marshall offering me a clerkship. That year, at a time when a number of Supreme Court justices were still hiring no female clerks, Marshall hired two.

Marshall’s concerns about character have been widely shared, at least in principle. Americans claim that they care….. Ninety-nine percent of students agree that “it’s important for me to be a person with good character” and 85 percent of parents want character education in schools. Honesty and integrity are among the characteristics that the public ranks as most important in leaders. Yet [earlier chapters] also reflected, there is a dispiriting disconnect between what Americans say and what they do when it comes to character-related decisions. Many character education programs lack adequate resources, teacher training, evaluation, and accountability. Millions of children participate in youth and sports organizations that claim to build character but have yet to demonstrate their effectiveness. And many of the individuals we choose as leaders fall short along dimensions of character. Only about a quarter of Americans think that elected officials are honest or that they put the interests of the country ahead of their own. Only 8 percent of the public rates the ethical standards of members of Congress as high or very high. Only 17 percent feel similarly about business executives.

These are worrisome trends, not only because character-related traits affect leaders’ performance in office but also because the significance (or lack of significance) we attach to those traits sends a powerful symbolic message. Those we choose for leadership positions shapes our own cultural character. What does it say about the nation’s political priorities that integrity ranked only fourth among Democrats and sixth among Republicans and Independents who were asked about the relative importance of qualities in presidential candidates? Less than a fifth of Americans considered President Trump honest and trustworthy, but almost half voted for him anyway.

In law as well as politics, we need to place importance on a more informed understanding of character. Legal standards play a much more critical role than is commonly assumed. Good moral character requirements define the kind of jobs and professional licenses people can hold and whether they can become citizens or reside in the country legally. The law concerning character also affects judgments concerning culpability, punishment, and parole. Yet all too often, legal doctrine is out of touch with psychological research. The qualities that we associate with character are not static across time and situations. Character can evolve, and the law should become more wary of categorical pronouncements that individuals have it or they don’t. Decisions about occupational licenses, citizenship, deportation, criminal sentences, and parole need to take into account a wider range of factors that bear on moral culpability and rehabilitation.

Educational, nonprofit, and media organizations also should do more to honor exemplary character and to withhold recognition from individuals whose conduct raises ethical concerns. In The Common Good, Robert Reich offers several examples. One is Alfred Taubman, who donated money to found the Taubman Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and who subsequently served a prison sentence for price-fixing. In refusing student requests to change the name, the center director claimed that “in the great scheme of things, Taubman[‘s] . . . conviction does not mean that his life has not been ethical, or one that Harvard doesn’t want to associate with.” Reich responds, “Hello? Taubman had just been convicted of price-fixing. His name was etched on Harvard’s school of government, which is supposed to train students to work for the common good.” It is one thing for the law to recognize and reward rehabilitation; it is quite another to retain a felon’s name on an institution dedicated to ethical leadership for no reason other than financial.

So too, in 2017, the Los Angeles Press Club honored Harvey Weinstein with its Truthteller Award for Contributions to the Public Discourse and Cultural Enlightenment of Our Society. The club called him an example of “integrity and social responsibility” despite widespread rumors of his sexual abuses. The only plausible explanation for that willful blindness was that so many Hollywood journalists were indebted to Weinstein for work as writers and consultants. And until recent public outcry, many nonprofits accepted funding and named buildings after the Sackler family, despite its contribution to the opioid crisis.

Less egregious examples are common in award celebrations throughout the nation where we pretend to honor moral leadership but the real qualification is money. Some of that pretense may be inevitable for nonprofits struggling for survival, but we can surely do better in celebrating lives committed to the common good. We need more ways to honor those who, as Obama said of Mandela, “speak to what’s best inside us.”

Finally, the public should give greater priority to character in selecting political leaders. Qualities of moral leadership are generally a better predictor of presidential effectiveness than policy promises. Circumstances change, and new information, constraints, or crises may require initiatives different from those that candidates propose in seeking election. If we want more than 7 percent of Americans to have a “a great deal of trust and confidence” in politicians, then the public needs to select for qualities that earn such trust. We should demand honesty, integrity, self-awareness, self-discipline, and commitment to democratic principles and the common good. If we are disappointed in the character of our leaders, then at least part of the responsibility lies with the character of those who elect them. As Congressman Barney Frank once pointed out, “Everyone hates Congress, everyone hates the media, everyone hates Washington. But let me tell you something, the voters are no picnic either.”

This is not a modest agenda. And it is pushing against strong cultural forces that too often reward wealth, power, and celebrity over qualities of moral character. But the stakes are too substantial for us to acquiesce in those priorities. We must counter with a richer understanding of character and greater efforts to pursue and honor lives that reflect it. SL