Congratulations to newly sworn-in Justice Elena Kagan, the fourth woman ever in 234 years of US history to be nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court! Kudos to President Obama for choosing her! One third of the nine member Court are now women, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor having retired in 2006. Our 2010 census will show that slightly over 50% of our 300 million plus citizens are female. It is time the gender imbalance on the Court be addressed. Justice Ginsberg reported, “We do bring to the table the experience of growing up as girls and women.” Wow! All of us who have daughters and granddaughters want, as President Obama said, a Supreme Court “a little more representative, more reflective of us as a people than ever before.” We want, as the President said, “limitless possibilities” for them.
I urge the President to go one step further. We’ve only had two African-Americans ever serve on the Supreme Court: Thurgood Marshall (served 1961-1991) and Clarence Thomas, who is currently serving. It is high time for a black woman to serve in this capacity. With the next vacancy on the Court, President Obama needs to nominate a (hopefully liberal), African-American woman. Although he would, as a matter of course, choose someone with impeccable credentials, I would also prefer that she grew up in the South prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and carry with her the vivid memories (a la Shirley Sherrod) of Jim Crow.
Certain provisions of the Civil Rights Act have come into question by the Far Right. Even Tea Party candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky, Rand Paul, has stated privately-owned businesses (hotels, restaurants) should have the right to decide whom they will and will not serve. As a loyal, patriotic American, I am shocked and saddened by this. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one the most important pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States. I consider it sacrosanct. If any American citizen is ever discriminated against because of his or her race, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual orientation, political or religious views, then no American is really free. A black woman on the Court would know this instinctively, especially if she and members of her family had experienced institutionalized discrimination.
There are those who may say, “Gender doesn’t matter. Race and ethnicity do not matter. Just choose the most qualified person for the job.” Ideally, they are right. Ideally, no child would come to school hungry because her parents would provide her with a nutritious breakfast beforehand. Ideally, schools should not have to provide free or reduced price lunches because parents would have the means to pay for them. But we do not live in the ideal world. We live in the real world.
As a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male) over sixty, living in a country with a long, sad history of racial inequality and discrimination, I believe our country needs a black woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. I hope the President makes this happen with the next Court vacancy!
