Black Federal Judges and Civil Rights in the Age of Obama

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-221
Author(s):  
Shenita Brazelton ◽  
Dianne M. Pinderhughes
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Judges ◽  
The Impact

We examine the demographics of the federal judiciary and the impact President Obama had on diversifying the federal bench. We discuss the record-breaking number of women and minorities Obama appointed to federal courts at all levels. Considering the historic and current struggles of African Americans in attaining civil rights, we focus our discussion on the appointment of Black federal judges. We highlight the historic firsts for African American appointees and the continuing need for Black federal judges, particularly in the South. We also discuss the inclusionary dilemma in the context of President Obama’s selections for staffing the federal judiciary. We discuss Obama’s decision not to appoint a third African American justice to the Supreme Court, but we examine his record-breaking number of African American appointments to the lower federal courts. Despite these historic appointments, President Obama’s appointment power was not unfettered. In the end, we assess the impact of Obama’s appointees in view of voting rights litigation. Voting rights are particularly pertinent for racial minorities who have been historically denied these rights but have made gains in electing minorities to public office. In the conclusion, we discuss the racial implications of the Trump administration’s attempts to reverse Obama’s judicial legacy.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on American Political Parties

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 565-575
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact

The weakening of American political parties has been a theme featured in the writings of political scientists for the past several decades. This essay is addressed to developments which may further that decline-developments which have undermined the very purpose which American political parties are said to serve. I refer to legal standards which were established by the Supreme Court in 1964, and which have since been expanded by the Court and then incorporated into the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its amendment in 1982.

scholarly journals Patterson v. McLean: A Confirmation of the New Right at the U.S. Supreme Court

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 987-1009
Author(s):  
George M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Presidential Appointments ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

In two consecutive national elections a conservative, Ronald Reagan, was elected President of the United States. When Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement during the late months of the Reagan administration, it was apparent that the President's last appointment could shift the ideology of the Court to conservatism for the first time since the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. President Reagan's prior appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, had joined William Rehnquist, an appointee of President Nixon and Bryon White, an appointee of President Kennedy to comprise a vociferous minority of four in many instances, especially cases involving civil rights. The unexpected opportunity for the appointment of a conservative jurist caused great anxiety in the media and in the U.S. Senate, the later having confirmation power over presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. This article examines the consequences of the Senate's confirmation of Justice Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court. The impact, which was immediate and dramatic, indicates that conservative ideology will predominate on major civil rights issues for the remainder of this century.

Part II Institutions and Constitutional Change, C The Courts, Ch.10 The Supreme Court of Canada and Appointment of Judges in Canada

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dodek Adam ◽  
Way Rosemary Cairns
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Institutional Diversity ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Democratic Ideals ◽  
Federal Judges ◽  
Transparency And Accountability

This chapter explains the constitutional status of the Supreme Court of Canada with attention to the Court’s composition, jurisdiction, and procedure. The chapter discusses the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss 5 and 6 and considers whether and how that decision limits Parliament’s authority to make changes to the Court. Both the process for appointing Supreme Court of Canada justices and the process for appointing other federal judges to the country’s superior courts are explained. The authors argue that both appointment processes are inconsistent with democratic ideals of transparency and accountability. They examine the emerging scholarly and professional consensus on the importance of institutional diversity on the bench, and conclude that the continuing lack of diversity in the federal judiciary raises legitimate political and constitutional concerns.

Response to Commentaries

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-450
Author(s):  
J. Morgan Kousser
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
The Body ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Long Time

The often kind and always interesting comments of Larry Griffin, David James, and Bradley Palmquist touch different aspects of Colorblind Injustice. Let me respond to them, in effect, in chronological order, according to which periods of history illuminate the comments the most. Palmquist points out that institutions like the Supreme Court may suddenly reverse their decisions, as the Court did in the !“switch in time that saved nine” after FDR had proposed to pack the body in 1937, or as it over-turned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). But as the Brown example suggests, it often takes a long time to overturn precedents, and that is the case with minority voting rights, as well. It was 25 years after Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy,” 24 years after Earl Warren ceased to be Chief Justice, and 23 years after Nixon proposed to water down the Voting Rights Act before the overwhelmingly Republican Supreme Court dared to seriously undermine African American and Latino political rights. Even then, they hesitated to attack the Voting Rights Act itself directly. Major institutions are tough in two senses: their policies often have large impacts, and the institutions, including those as tiny as the nine-member Supreme Court, are difficult to change.

scholarly journals Federalists, Federalism, and Federal Jurisdiction

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison L. LaCroix
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Federal Jurisdiction ◽  
Political Turmoil

Historians and legal scholars generally agree that during John Marshall's tenure as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, the federal judiciary expanded its power to interpret the Constitution and asserted with increasing force its authority to speak on behalf of the Union. This single story of judicial nationalism, however, contains two distinct and largely non-overlapping strands. Historians have tended to focus on the Supreme Court alone, to the exclusion of the lower federal courts, and have largely treated early national controversies over the lower federal courts as outgrowths of the political turmoil that accompanied the emergence of the first party system. Legal scholars in the fields of federal courts and constitutional law, meanwhile, have devoted significant attention to the lower federal courts but have largely neglected the history of how those courts developed beyond the key early moments of the Constitutional Convention and the First Congress.

In Search of a Coherent Theory of Voting Rights: Challenges to the Supreme Court's Vision of Fair and Effective Representation

1994 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 503-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark E. Rush
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
Effective Representation

The Supreme Court's approach to representation and redistricting has been grounded on a vision of fairness which extends only as far as the electoral process itself. Accordingly, the doctrine of one-person one-vote, as well as the Court's advocacy of remedial redistricting measures, has focused on ensuring that the electoral routes to legislative representation remained open. Recently, a new wave of challenges to this approach has arisen in legal scholarship and the lower federal courts because its focus on maintaining an open and pluralist political process overlooks the political realities of governing: gaining representation means little if one remains an impotent minority. This article assesses the merits of this new “neopluralist” challenge and the extent to which the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have already begun to incorporate some of its elements. The article concludes by pointing out that this incorporation has led to the establishment of two lines of precedent which are based on irreconcilable notions of representation.

African-American Press Coverage of Clarence Thomas Nomination

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 98-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Fearn-Banks
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
American Press

The nomination of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court posed a dilemma for African-American newspapers because they had to choose between supporting African-Americans and supporting civil rights. Their mixed coverage of the story reflects this dilemma.

Rethinking the State Secrets Privilege

2010 ◽  
pp. 656-672
Author(s):  
Louis Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The State ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Federal Judiciary ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government ◽  
Federal Judges ◽  
State Secrets ◽  
Past Half

This article discusses the concept of state secrets privilege which is designed to prevent private litigants from gaining access to agency documents sought in cases involving National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, extraordinary rendition, and other intelligence programs. Before the Reynolds case, the Supreme Court recognized the state secrets privilege. Over the past half century, federal judges gave “deference” to the executive claims on sensitivity and confidentiality of agency records without ever looking at the disputed document. However in 1953, the Supreme Court was misled by the government. Since then, there has been an interest in having Congress enact legislation to assure greater independence for the federal judiciary and provide a more even playing field for private litigants.

Isn't It Ironic? The “Particular Plaintiffs” Provision of the PLRA

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Class Action ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Judicial Efficiency ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Procedural Decisions

The “particular plaintiffs” provision of PLRA, 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1), has had little success in restricting prisoners' access to class certification. Nonetheless, prisoners may now be largely unable to pursue class action litigation. In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, the Supreme Court last year announced new restrictions on class certification that may make such litigation nearly unavailable in most civil rights cases, including those filed by prisoners. As a further irony, the Supreme Court's decision from the same term in Brown v. Plata demonstrates that the new standards announced in Dukes are unrelated to distinguishing cases in which class certification promotes judicial efficiency and fairness. This sequence of events underlines the importance of the federal courts' hostility to civil rights in exacerbating the effects of PLRA on prisoners' rights, and the Supreme Court's expression of that hostility through procedural decisions.

scholarly journals Commercializing the Digital Canvas

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 837-872
Author(s):  
Jon M. Garon
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Video Art ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Visual Artists ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Art Community ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

Over the past two decades, a series of trends in constitutional and intellectual property have significantly reshaped the impact of traditional intellectual property laws for the art community. Attribution of a work to the artist and protection of the integrity of a work from alternation are historical bedrocks of artistic protections, but those protections have been diminished for digital artists. The Visual Artists Rights Act excludes digital works from the definition of works of visual art, thus excluding these works from rights of attribution and integrity. At the time, rights of attribution and integrity were seen as quasi-trademark rights, and artists were protected under the Lanham Act. Since then, however, the Supreme Court has extended copyright’s preemption over trademark, undermining an artist’s ability to have non-contractual protections for the artist’s identity and integrity in a work. In addition, a second trend within the digital environment has created additional tensions for artists whose works include celebrities, athletes, or other members of the public. The Supreme Court has made the clear determination that video games are entitled to complete First Amendment protection, placing those works in the same category as film, publishing, and works of art. Despite this free speech protection to the medium, a series of inconsistent decisions among state and federal courts have made unclear when the use of a person’s likeness in a video game—or video art instillation—would constitute a violation of the person’s rights of publicity.

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