 |
| Barack Obama and Elena Kagan |
President Barack Obama has selected Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and served as a clerk for the first black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. She was also the dean at Harvard and served as the school’s solicitor general.
However, Kagan has been criticized by the Black Women’s Roundtable of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation for her lack of commitment to civil rights. According to a study done by Guy-Uriel Charles, founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics, Kagan hired 28 whites and one Asian-American during her tenure as the dean of Harvard Law School.
In a statement, the Black Women’s Roundtable of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, which was founded by the late Dr. Dorothy I. Height, also criticized the Obama administration for not nominating a black woman.
“We believe it is time for African American women to be represented in all sectors of government — including the Supreme Court of the United States, which in its 221-year history has not had a black woman nominated to serve on our highest court in the land.
“Our trepidation regarding General Kagan is premised on the lack of a clearly identifiable record on the protection of our nation’s civil rights laws. As women leaders, we greatly respect General Kagan’s intellectual capabilities and highly accomplished record in the Administration and academia. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of a specific emphasis on the civil rights laws utilized in the protection of racial and ethnic minorities and those traditionally disenfranchised in this nation.” –amir shaw
