James E. Clayton Passed Away

The current chairman of the Board of Trustees Roger Whitaker wrote: "Jim gave of himself over the past 20 years to ensure the success of the American College that was so closely tied to the work of his favorite uncle, Floyd H. Black. No one cared more for the College than Jim and we are deeply indebted to his work that so fundamentally shaped the reopened College."

Mr. Clayton was a judge’s son who in 1960 became The Washington Post’s first full-time U.S. Supreme Court reporter and wrote influential editorials for the newspaper.

In 1960, The Post sent Mr. Clayton to Harvard Law School for a six-month primer on constitutional law. Mr. Clayton, who had also written about civil rights in the Deep South and NASA lunar expeditions, soon began writing for The Post’s editorial page.

Mr. Whitaker recalled: "As a newspaper man, Jim always wanted to be clear about the facts. He was an editor for the Washington Post and he continued to think like one after retirement. Anytime I wanted to skip a step and substitute opinion for fact, Jim, in his gentle way, brought matters back into focus. He had a sober and realistic view of our challenges but they were married to an unwavering commitment to see us through to better times."

James Edwin Clayton, whose father was a city court judge, was born in Johnston City, Illinois, on Nov. 14, 1929. After Army service during the Korean War, he graduated from the University of Illinois in 1953 and received a master’s degree in public administration from Princeton University in 1956.

In 1961, he married Elise Heinz, a Harvard Law School graduate, Equal Rights Amendment lobbyist and two-term Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates. She died in 2014. Survivors include two sons, Jonathan Clayton and David Clayton, and four granddaughters.