President Obama

by Jeremy Leaming

A year ago today the country lost a courageous, prolific, principled and trailblazing legal scholar and activist for equality and social justice, with the passing of Derrick Bell.

Bell was 80 when he died on Oct. 5, 2011, and had led a life devoted to bettering the lives of the country’s most vulnerable and to bettering the country as a whole. Bell was Harvard Law School’s first tenured black professor and subsequently its first black dean. The New York Times noted in an article about Bell his leading and inspiring actions to “expose” and fight racism in America.

Today on the one-year anniversary of Bell’s death, hundreds of law professors and lawyers are urging many more of their colleagues to sign an open letter honoring his work and life. Scores of law professor and attorneys have already signed the letter; their names are included at the conclusion of the letter.

The academics and lawyers’ letter opens noting that Bell’s “contributions as civil rights attorney, prolific legal scholar, and dedicated teacher have been noted in memorials held across the country,” and that throughout his storied career and life he had “labored to break race and gender barriers that remain pervasive in American society.”

Earlier this year in the heat of a presidential election, rightwing pundits created a bit of an uproar when they tried to sully his reputation as some sort of radical or extremist, in a tawdry effort to undermine President Obama. (Obama was a young law student at Harvard during Bell’s tenure.) Video surfaced showing Obama at a public event involving Bell, and thanking him for his tireless work to diversify Harvard’s faculty. The rightwing pundits’ actions were more offensive than uproarious.

In their letter, the law scholars and lawyers ask others to join them in celebrating a man who “was an advocate for women’s rights, gay rights and disability rights long before these were popular causes.”

The letter concludes:

In his honor, we too act on the courage of our convictions.  We invite lawyers and law professors throughout the nation to sign this Open Letter in support of Professor Bell’s legacy as a highly respected colleague, advocate and mentor.  We disavow any efforts to discredit Professor Bell, to malign his character, or to mischaracterize his contributions. We recognize Derrick Bell as a great champion of equality for all Americans. We honor 1his legacy and the example he provided of a life fully and courageously lived.

Our signatures below express solidarity with an eminent scholar who advanced legal thinking, teaching and advocacy.  We encourage those who read this letter to continue Professor Bell’s quest for social justice and equality.  To learn more about our remarkable colleague, to read additional tributes, and to support his family’s request to endow the Derrick Bell Lecture Series on Race in American Society at New York University School of Law, please visit www.professorderrickbell.com. 

Read the entire letter here.

by Jeremy Leaming

The Republican effort to avoid filling judicial vacancies in the hopes of gaining more political power in November continues unabated, but not without justifiably sharp criticism.

Senate Republicans’ agenda of obstructing everything Obama may be simple and nakedly political, but obstruction of judicial nominations is also disastrous for the nation’s court system. The Senate left town with more than 75 vacancies on the federal bench, many of them deemed emergency vacancies by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts of the federal bench.   

Last week the Republicans blocked Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s effort to force votes on 17 district court nominations, and left town for a recess after confirming only two. The Senate confirmed Gonzalo Curiel for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California and Robert Shelby to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. Both nominees were recommended for confirmation by the Senate Judiciary Committee about five months ago.

In a press release, containing a list of pending nominations and a lengthy statement, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) blasted the Republicans’ intransigence. The obstruction of the judicial nominations is yet another example of “Senate Republicans putting partisanship ahead of the interests of the American people,” Leahy said. “I have served in the Senate for 37 years, and I have never seen so many judicial nominees, reported with bipartisan support, be denied a simple up-or-down voter for four months, five months, six months, even 11 months.”