Tuesday, Jun 29, 2010 2:29 AM UTC
It’s not even coded bigotry anymore
The GOP hits Elena Kagan for admiring Thurgood Marshall and hailing from "Manhattan's Upper West Side"
Topics: Elena Kagan, Politics News
I’m not entirely sold on Solicitor General Elena Kagan as our newest Supreme Court Justice. Ironically, one of my reservations has to do with her approach to leveling racial discrimination – specifically her reported role in scuttling a Clinton administration plan to do away with sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine (which has meant heavier punishment for African Americans than whites for dealing or using the same drug.)
That said, Republicans on the Senate Judicial Committee are trying to make the case she’s outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence, by attacking her clerking for (and admiring) legal giant Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice, while singling her out as a denizen of “Manhattan’s Upper West Side” – you know, the neighborhood known for Zabar’s and bagels and, well, Jews.
Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions of Alabama, who wasn’t crazy about Sonia Sotomayor, you’ll recall, denounced Kagan having “associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to redefine the meaning of our constitution and have the result of advancing that judge’s preferred social policies,” and he cited Marshall, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund leader who argued Brown vs. Board of Education. According to Talking Points Memo, Republicans mentioned Marshall an astonishing 35 times in the hearing (compared with 14 mentions of President Obama) with his son, Thurgood Marshall Jr., sitting in the audience.
Sen. Jon Kyl played the culture war card:
“Not only is Ms. Kagan’s background unusual for a Supreme Court nominee, it is not clear how it demonstrates that she has, in the President’s words, ‘a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people.’ One recent article noted that ‘[Ms.] Kagan’s experience draws from a world whose signposts are distant from most Americans: Manhattan’s upper West side, Princeton University, Harvard Law School and the upper reaches of the Democratic legal establishment.’”
Elena Kagan is the 45th Solicitor General of the United States, confirmed in March 2009. Prior to her confirmation, she was the 11th Dean of Harvard Law School. Among her previous positions is a stint at the White House, from 1995-99, where she served as a counselor.
Kagan received her
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