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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Judicial Nominees Are Refusing to Endorse Brown v. Board of Education
Trump Judicial Nominees Are Refusing to Endorse Brown v. Board of Education
In normal times, it would be unthinkable. Under Trump, its become a trend.
Stephanie Mencimer
February 14, 2019 6:00 AM
Theres no Supreme Court decision more widely celebrated than Brown v. Board of Education, the unanimous 1954 ruling that abolished school segregation. But this month, when Neomi Rao appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on her nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, she refused to say whether she thought the case had been correctly decided.
Asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) whether the court had made the right decision in Brown, Rao replied, As a judicial nominee, I think its not appropriate for me to comment on the correctness of particular precedents. Blumenthal asked her for a yes or no, but Rao would say only that Brown is an incredibly important decision of the Supreme Courta dodge she twice repeated when pressed further.
In normal times, the moment might have been extraordinary. During the Trump administration, its par for the course. Rao is one of at least 10 Trump nominees to the federal courts in the past year who have refused to offer an opinion on Brown. Several of those nominees have been confirmed or approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and set for a full Senate vote. Among them is Wendy Vitter, wife of former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), whom Trump nominated to a district court seat in Louisiana. In April, she told the judiciary committee, I dont mean to be coy, but I think I get into a difficult, difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme Court decisions which are correctly decided and which I may disagree with.
Until Trump took office, refusing to endorse Brown as a judicial nominee would have been unthinkable. Both of former President George W. Bushs Supreme Court appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and archconservative Justice Samuel Alito, had no trouble answering the question in the affirmative during their confirmation hearings, nor did Justice Elena Kagan when she was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama. But times have changed.
Raos refusal to acknowledge that Brown was rightly decided is a serious flouting of democratic norms and a judicial dog whistle, says Todd A. Cox, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund policy director, signaling that Brown, its legacy, and all the progress flowing from it are potentially up for renegotiation.
more...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/trump-judicial-nominees-are-refusing-to-endorse-brown-v-board-of-education/
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Trump Judicial Nominees Are Refusing to Endorse Brown v. Board of Education (Original Post)
babylonsister
Feb 2019
OP
EXACTLY what I expected when I saw "HOLDING MY NOSE" "JUST CANT TRUST HER"
Eliot Rosewater
Feb 2019
#1
Eliot Rosewater
(31,150 posts)1. EXACTLY what I expected when I saw "HOLDING MY NOSE" "JUST CANT TRUST HER"
that if those sentiments won out the day and rump won the election, we would see the END of America