IN THIS ISSUE

Front Page

Letter from the President: Putting Race Back on the Table

Notes from the Right: Race and Poverty —Getting a Legal Burial?

Law Review Summaries: Racial Lines and Property Rights

Funders Support Innovative Meeting on Intent Doctrine

EJS and California Teachers Association Collaborate on Unconscious Bias Project

EJS Argues Admissions Policy of Hawai'i Private School for Native Hawaiian Children Does Not Violate Civil Rights

New Chief Justice: Where Will He Stand on Civil Rights?

Staff/Board News and Notes

Newsletter Editors:
Elaine Elinson
Miguel Gavaldon

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New Chief Justice: Where Will He Stand on Civil Rights?

By Keith Kamisugi
Associate Director for Communications and Development

John Glover Roberts Jr. was sworn in Sept. 29 as the 17th chief justice of the United States only hours after the Senate confirmed him by a 78 to 22 vote.

Throughout Roberts' nomination and confirmation process, Eva Paterson and the Equal Justice Society helped lead the Californians for Fair and Independent Judges (CFIJ) coalition in evaluating and eventually opposing his confirmation.

A coalition of more than 50 organizations working to protect the independence of the federal courts, CFIJ's member organizations represent a wide spectrum of communities and causes: environmental, civil rights, civil liberties, reproductive rights, faith based, ethnic, labor, disability, gay rights, seniors and women's communities.

It was an uphill battle from the start. But not without some important victories.

From the beginning of the nominating process, members of the CFIJ knew it had a particular responsibility to share research, knowledge and informed opinions with Senator Dianne Feinstein, the only woman on the Judiciary Committee. When Roberts was first nominated to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat, Senator Feinstein expressed favorable words about his intelligence and legal acumen.

After the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist -- when Roberts was selected by the President to succeed him as the next Chief Justice -- there was even more at stake.

EJS joined the CFIJ coalition in organizing a well-attended forum on Judge Roberts at Hastings School of Law, and in sending out alerts to members and supporters as more of his anti-civil rights record came to light. EJS staff played a key role on the CFIJ media team, organizing press conferences, interviews and editorial board meetings. The latter resulted in the Sacramento Bee publishing a critical editorial on the lack of information on Roberts' record during his confirmation process. "We believe our efforts to encourage Californians to communicate their opposition to the Senator had an impact on Senator's Dianne Feinstein's final vote opposing Roberts," said EJS president Eva Paterson.

In a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer, drafted by Paterson and EJS Board member Tobias Wolff, and circulated widely to the media, EJS strongly opposed Roberts, noting:

For the past 13 years, the Supreme Court has engaged in a silent revolution by rolling back the power of the federal government to provide for the needs of the American people and to enforce its laws against the States. Relying upon 19th century precedents that lent their implicit sanction to practices like Jim Crow and systematic lynchings, this Court has seriously curtailed many of the progressive victories secured in the halls of Congress over the last 50 years.

There is every indication that Chief Justice Roberts will continue this trend by imposing unwarranted constraints on the power of Congress to provide for the welfare of the nation and its people.

(Click here for full version of EJS statement)

Paterson also noted: "For the past quarter-century, the Federalist Society and attorneys in the Reagan and Bush Justice Departments, have attempted to devolve jurisprudence to the era before Brown and the civil rights movement. The confirmation of John Roberts marked another signpost along the Rightward path blazed by the Federalist Society. EJS stands squarely in favor of a progressive vision of justice and rejects the judicial ideology Roberts represents.

"We opposed Roberts because we felt that the person who would become the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court should be a person with a clear and unambiguous willingness to abide by the precedents that have given voice to these values," said Paterson.

The public spotlight on Chief Justice Roberts' first session with the gavel was diminished somewhat when President Bush chose that same day to announce his nomination to fill Justice O'Connor's seat. He selected Harriet Miers, his personal attorney, White House counsel and the official in charge of the search committee.

Miers subsequently withdrew her nomination under pressure from the Radical Right Wing and facing the strong possibility that Senators of the President's own party might vote against her nomination.

On Oct. 31, 2005, President Bush nominated Samuel A. Alito Jr. to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. EJS has reviewed Judge Alito's record and has taken a stand in opposition to his nomination, believing that his brand of right-wing judicial activism and hostility to fundamental rights and liberties does not belong on our nation's highest court.