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Sotomayor's Judgment Day
As confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor begin before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, it’s probably best to keep some perspective on the significance of the proceedings. Unless there’s a violent crime in her past, Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Given Al Franken’s recent seating as…
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Enough Already With Obama's 'Black Speech'
Maybe it was that we had just come through a humiliating week of watching a parade of white, male senators talk down to a highly accomplished Latina federal appellate court judge and nominee to the United States Supreme Court, but I wasn’t feeling President Obama’s “tough love” message to the NAACP national convention. Obama delivered…
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Who Gets Paris, Prince and Blanket?
The further postponement of the child custody hearing for the children of the late Michael Jackson is evidence that lawyers for both Debbie Rowe and Katherine Jackson are keenly aware that neither woman is perfectly positioned to withstand the scrutiny of a child custody hearing. But Katherine Jackson has a considerably stronger case for custody…
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Why We Should Indict the Memo Writers
In an ideal world, law and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly. But on the occasions when they don’t, things can get a little sticky. Enter President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, as they release memos in which lawyers for the Department of Justice under President Bush counseled CIA interrogators to engage…
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Returning Police Brutality to the National Agenda
It’s one of the depressing ironies of black life that in the Obama era, black mothers and fathers must continue giving their teenage sons “the talk.” I’m not talking about the birds and the bees. I’m talking about the “how to act when the police stop you” talk. Rule 1. Don’t talk back to the…
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The 100th Day Threat to Voting Rights
On the 100th day of the first term of the first black president of the United States, lawyers for a small utility district in Travis County, Texas, walked up the steps of the Supreme Court Building to ask the nine justices of the court to dismantle a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of…
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Who The Supreme Court Needs Now
In the book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin wrote that Justice David Souter wept after the Supreme Court’s nakedly political, legally indefensible and bitterly divided decision in Bush v. Gore. And apparently it’s been downhill from there. I’ve been hearing for years that Justice Souter would be the…
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Playing Hardball With Affirmative Action
If you missed Chris Matthews’ whacked-out tirade against affirmative action last week on his shoutfest Hardball with Chris Matthews, don’t worry. I’m guessing you’ll have plenty of opportunities to hear similar screeds in the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the affirmative action case involving promotions in the New…
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The Judge They Feared
In 1998, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, decided to delay the vote on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. The reason was simple: Republicans feared that if Judge Sotomayor were quickly seated on the Court of Appeals, she would rise…
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Should Blacks Be Disappointed About Sotomayor?
“Are you disappointed?” my Latino colleague tentatively asked when I called to share in the excitement of the Sotomayor moment. I knew what he meant. Not that I’m not thrilled with the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It’s an important and historic nomination of a brilliant judge whose life story resonates deeply not only with…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
