Roberts spoke at BYU in 2002 when he was invited by BYU legal counsel Thomas Griffith to join a conference named for Lee.

Griffith also helped BYU land Roberts this time.

Griffith joined Roberts as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in June 2005. BYU President Cecil Samuelson met Roberts at a Washington, D.C., reception for Griffith and invited him to speak.

"Chief Justice Roberts mentioned he had been to BYU previously and held our university and law school in high regard," Samuelson said. "I simply invited him to come again, and our people on both sides worked out the arrangements from there."

The timing was serendipitous.

Two days after Samuelson invited Roberts, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement. Less than three weeks later, President Bush nominated Roberts to replace her.

Two months after that, Bush nominated Roberts to replace deceased Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Each forum speaker must be approved by the university forum committee, the academic vice president's council, the president's council, the commissioner of education for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the executive committee of the Board of Trustees and the board.

"A nomination can be stopped at any of those levels," Naumann said.

The committee generally avoids active politicians and, Naumann said, "too many controversial political figures."

Administrators want forums to enrich the university's liberal arts curriculum and confront students with difficult issues.

"There's an interest on the committee to challenge students," Naumann said. "They really need to learn to think for themselves. We have a tendency to coddle them too much at BYU, and they're going to find it different in the real world. We'd rather confront those issues where they can discuss them in a positive light in their classes."

Long-time liberal White House correspondent Helen Thomas controversially questioned Bush and the Iraq War at a BYU forum in 2003, but she also drew a crowd of more than 4,600, Naumann said.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com