Chief Justice: Being Chancellor Is a Fun Distraction

What’s more remarkable than being the Chief Justice of the United States? Being the Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, according to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Chancellor is an even more impressive-sounding title than Chief Justice, Roberts said Feb. 3 at the New England School of Law in Boston.

But since 1850, those two titles have been shared by one man, Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas told Bloomberg BNA June 13.

That’s because the Chief Justice is an ex officio member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents.

There are some “odd historical reasons why that is so,” Roberts ...