WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) – The chief justice of the court that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts told Brandeis University graduates on Sunday that judicial independence must be protected from “the will of the majority.”

Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall expressed concern over recent attacks against the judiciary.

“Our courts function as a pressure valve to defuse political and social tension,” Marshall said during her commencement speech. “As a nation, we have tacitly agreed that it is better to settle our large differences in the courtroom than in the street.”

The SJC’s 4-3 ruling in November 2003 that gays and lesbians have the constitutional right to marry in Massachusetts sparked opposition around the nation.

Conservative politicians, including President Bush, blamed “activist judges,” including Marshall, for advancing a social agenda.

“I worry when people of influence use vague, loaded terms like judicial activist’ to skew public debate or to intimidate judges,” Marshall said. “I worry when judicial independence is seen as a problem to be solved and not a value to be cherished.”

Marshall, who received an honorary degree, told the nearly 1,000 graduates that they must pick a side.

“Respect for the rule of law is deeply imbedded in our American experience but it is not embedded in our DNA,” she said. “Each of you must decide whether to embrace, to protect the rule of law, or to repudiate it. Make no mistake, inaction and indifference are acts of repudiation.”

Marshall referred to court rulings concerning school desegregation and civil rights as proof that an independent judiciary is vital.

“Individual rights and human dignity are vulnerable when they depend for protection on the will of the majority or the good faith of those in power,” she said.

Greek Prime Minster Kostas Karamanlis told graduates of Tufts University in Medford that his country was proud to host the “most inspiring, the most creative and the safest” Olympics in history.

“Everyone predicted that we would not be ready and the Games were going to be a disaster, but we proved all the armchair Cassandras wrong,” he said.

At Suffolk University Law School in Boston, U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., told more than 450 graduates that the United States has become an “increasingly divided nation.”

Biden criticized Senate Republicans for weighing the so-called “nuclear option” – changing Senate rules to end the fight over judicial filibusters.

Lawyers know that “if you take away one of the building blocks of our constitutional foundation, they all begin to fall,” Biden said.

Suffolk awarded honorary degrees to Biden and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who addressed graduates of Suffolk’s College of Arts and Sciences and its business school.

National Public Radio correspondent Nina Totenberg addressed more than 500 graduates of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, urging them to not let work get in the way of family.

“You may be the principal breadwinner in your family, but money is not everything and no job need be forever,” she said. “In the end, there are times to say, No, I am going home.”‘

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst awarded degrees to about 4,000 undergraduates. The school awarded honorary degrees to Andover businessman Douglas Berthiaume and Heriberto Flores, executive director of the New England Farm Workers’ Council.

Amherst College handed out more than 400 undergraduate degrees, and seven honorary degrees, including one to former U.S. senator and astronaut John Glenn.

AP-ES-05-22-05 1655EDT