Judicial Prowess

Ceremony honors alumna’s appointment as federal judge

The Honorable Katherine A. Crytzer, an MTSU Honors alumna who is now a federal judge, spiced her own serious remarks at her ceremonial investiture about her deep commitment both to law and to public service with a quotation from Dolly Parton.

“President Andrew Jackson, who—like me—adopted Tennessee as his home, is purported to have said ‘One man with courage makes a majority,’” Crytzer said. “Or, as another famous Tennessean, and native east Tennessean—Dolly Parton—put it, ‘You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.’

“Whether you attribute the sentiment to President Jackson or Dolly, it rings true. When I walk into this hallowed courthouse every day to serve my community and country, I have the courage of my convictions. I intend to ‘do a whole lot’ on behalf of the court and in service to my country.”

The comment was well received at the Sept. 30 ceremony, which was attended by judges and other legal luminaries as well as Honors Dean John R. Vile and his wife, Linda.

A graduate of Farragut High School in Knoxville, Crytzer is only the second woman in history to hold the judgeship of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Her investiture in Knoxville occurred on the same day that Ketanji Brown Jackson went through a similar ceremony at the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I was pleased to see that the Honorable Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti mentioned Judge Crytzer’s education at MTSU—and the MTSU football team’s win over the University of Miami—in his opening remarks,” said Vile, who also was introduced.

A 2006 MTSU graduate, Crtyzer took one of Vile’s classes in constitutional law, competed on the Mock Trial team that he coached, and earned a Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship. Crtyzer attended the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and clerked for Judge Raymond W. Gruender of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in St. Louis. She then joined the D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis, where she met and married fellow attorney Joe Oliveri.

In 2014 Crytzer became an assistant U.S. attorney in Lexington, Kentucky, and later vetted judicial appointments as chief of staff for the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice. Appointed by President Donald Trump, she was sworn in as a federal judge in December 2020, although her investiture ceremony was postponed due to COVID-19.

Also on hand for the investiture was Honors graduate Gretchen Jenkins, who previously worked in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and now works with Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“There were times during the ceremony when I found myself both beaming with pride and close to tears,” Vile said.