P IA Suppo e
someon anted to teal b p t
chievcmen ,rein in 'pre nt ains
nd cut off future expectation
among Afric n-Americ ns bout
. participation in the judicial p
That person ould have found it dif-
, ficult to devi better plan th
DOminatin Clarence TOOm to th
Supreme Court hile decreasing t
· number of African-Arnerlcanjud e
. on the Federal bench.
The confirm lion of Clarence
, Thom forced the nation to p y at­
tention to many i ues, from th
Senate' role in confirming Supreme
Court J lice to exual harassment
of om n in th workpl ce, But th
Thomas confirm tion proceedings
diverted our ttention from one vital
i ue: Thanks 0 Presidents Ronald
Reagan and George Bush, African­
American judge on the United
States Courts of Appeals have been
turned into an endangered pecies
nd are now on the edge of extinc­
tion.
. For more than 99 percent of
Federal litigants, the 13 Courts of
Appeals are effectively the courts of
last resort.
Last term, the Supreme Court
. heard slightly more than 100 cases.
In the me period, the Courts of
Appeals decided 41,000 cases; in ad­
dition, they had 32,000 cases pend­
ing on their dockets at the end of the
year.
FO R 14! YEARS, the Federal
courts in the continental United
. States - the Supreme Court, Courts
of Appeals and District Courts -
. were entirely made up of white
males. The first woman, Florence �
Allen, w appotnted by Ptankttn D.
00 evelt, in 1934, and the first
African-American, William H. Has­
tie, in 1949, by Harry S. Truman.
During his eight years in office,
Dwight D. Eisenhower, however,
did not appoint a single African­
American to any Federal court in the
continental U.S. AI, €or the Courts of
Appeals, John F. Kennedy appointed'
. one African-American, Thurgood
Marshall, and Lyndon B. Johnson
appointed two, Spottswood W.
Robinson 3rd and Wade H. McCree
'Jr. Neither Richard Nixon nor
Gerald R. Ford appointed any
African-Americans to the Courts of
Appeals.
Presidents Nixon and Ford did
appoint a total of nine African- ,
Americans to the District Courts.
President Reagan appointed six, and
Pre ident Bush has appointed nine.
By contrast, Jimmy Carter appointed
,28 to these same courts. He ap­
pointed more African-Americans in
four years than Pre idents Nixon,
Ford, Reagan and Bush combined
appointed in the course of nearly 20
years.
President 'Carter also took sig­
nificant steps in his appointments to
. the Courts of Appeals. When he be­
came President in 1977, there were
only two African-American judges
on the Courts of Appeals. In four
years in office, he appointed nine,
including the first African-American
woman, Arnalya L. Kearse. Their
presence made the Federal judiciary
far stronger than it otherwise would
have been.
Moreover, to the extent that the
appointment of judge is a barometer
of the President'S feelings about
placing historically excluded group
in positions of power, Jimmy Carter
showed that he had complete con­
qdence in African-Americans.
President Reagan apparently felt
otherwise and Pre ident Bu hap­
parently does, too. On taking office, •
they both asserted that they wanted a
far more "conservative" Federal
court sy tern. In that, they have sue- .
ceeded admirably. But in the
proce s they have turned the Courts
'Of Appeah into what Judge Stepnen
Reinhardt of the Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit has called "a sym­
bol of white power."
IN EIGHT YEARS of office, out
of a total of 83 ppellate appoint­
ments' Rona (t Reagan found only
one African-American whom he
deemed worthy of appointment,
Lawrence W. Pierce. President
Bush's record i just as aby mal. .
Of hi 1 appointments to the
rent to, rather th n a promoter of. become extinct.
equal j tice for all.
A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. i
nior judg and/ormerChie/Jud
of tbe U.S. COW't of Appeals for the
Third Circuit. This article i
adapted/rom a speech � deli ered
to the National Bar A ociation in St.
Louis.
Voter regi tration
day lated
Th D troi t Cotillion Club will
ponsor a W y ,0 kland, and
Ma mb Counti Voter Regi tra­
tion Day, Wednesday, September
23, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at
The Cotillion Qub 13221 Puritan
Ave. at Cheyenne in D troit.
For more information call 272-
8611.
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