Bridgette Outten
+ FollowNAACP Says Senate is Attacking Thurgood Marshall at Kagan Confirmation Hearings
The NAACP is speaking out against what they call attacks against Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first black Supreme Court Justice, during confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan.
Kagan, 50, served as a law clerk for Marshall and has described him as a hero and a mentor. Numerous reports have said Kagan will most likely be confirmed. The question-and-answer portion of the hearings will continue Tuesday.
But Marshall is a point that GOP lawmakers seem to keep coming back to since the first day of hearings and “did not describe Marshall favorably,” according to NPR.
“It’s clear that he considered himself a judicial activist and was unapologetic about it,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “He described his judicial philosophy as quote, ‘Do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”
A statement from the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund has criticized those tactics:
“Thurgood Marshall changed our country dramatically for the better,” according to the statement released by LDF Director-Counsel John Payton. ”Astonishingly, Elena Kagan is being attacked by certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee because she says her mentor was Thurgood Marshall. She could not have had a better mentor.
“Here is what is undisputed: In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was a leader of those forces whose faith in the Constitution and the American Dream dismantled the perverse empire of Jim Crow – with its separate and unequal schools and colleges, its rigidly segregated neighborhoods, and its profoundly unequal opportunity in every sector of American life. As the founder of LDF, Thurgood Marshall helped America understand what democracy really means; and he continued to expound that exalted vision as a Justice of the Supreme Court.
“It is a disservice to the Senate and to the nation to have some, for the sake of hollow posturing, distort Thurgood Marshall’s beliefs and his extraordinary contribution to our understanding of justice and equality. Simply put, Thurgood Marshall helped make our union more perfect, and that legacy illuminates the highest possibilities for all Americans yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
Marshall’s son, Thurgood “Goody” Marshall Jr. told the Washington Post he was surprised by the repeated mentions of his father.
“(The elder Marshall) would’ve probably had the same reaction I did: It’s time to talk about Elena,” Goody Marshall said.
It appeared that Kagan shared Goody Marshall’s opinion. An exchange mentioned by NPR:
“On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) asked Kagan about Marshall again.
‘Do you believe then that he would have agreed with Justice Roberts that if the big guy has the law on his side, then the big guy wins, and if the little guy does, then the little guy wins?’ Kyl asked. ‘Or would he have expressed it more along the lines that some of my colleagues have here, that there’s too much agreement with the corporate interests and big business, as one of my colleagues put it?’
Kagan’s response?
‘I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time figuring out what Justice Marshall would have said. If you confirm me, you’ll get Justice Kagan, you won’t get Justice Marshall.’”
More on Politic365
Leave a Reply
Featured
Connect
Washington Informer
Advertisement
