We are witness this week to the accumulated
abandonment of initiative, decency, and compassion for the downtrodden in Louisiana – by our US government.
With this as backdrop I want you to have info, that John Roberts over the years has belittled and frustrated the aspirations of minorities, the strivings of women and the needs of the handicapped.
So offensive are his remarks and positions, it is not surprising that his Affirmative Action file has up and disappeared from the archives. (It vanished after 2 Bush admin lawyers, checked it out for review, and supposedly they returned it).
The editor of the Delta (Miss.) Democrat Times, who is a caucasian man, not an African-American, sees Roberts as:
"a protector of white guys everywhere."
These groups have stood up to oppose Roberts as nominee :
The National Coalition for Disability Rights.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
National Partnership for Women & Families
Mexican American Legal Defense + Educational Fund
National Women's Law Center
The Alliance for Justice
More at the jump -->
The editor of the
Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, Mississippi), R. Reily, understands that this matters. Even by Aug. 21 —before New Orleans— he gets it.
Reily, a caucasian (see pix), calls John Roberts
"a protector of white guys everywhere."
Roberts, who was nominated as a justice by President Bush last month, advised the [Reagan] White House to
strike language from a description of a housing bill
that referred to the "fundamental right to be free from discrimination."
He said that "there, of course, is no such right."
To this point, I have tried to give Roberts every benefit of the
doubt where his nomination is concerned, but I wonder if
he has too much baggage being a protector of white guys everywhere to effectively render decisions that involve the melting pot that is the United States.
July 22, 2005
Civil rights groups cite concerns
WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. has a history of working to roll back government affirmative action and voting rights programs enacted to help minorities overcome the effects of past discrimination. . . .
The Bush administration has released only heavily redacted versions of Roberts's memos from this era, and some civil rights groups are calling for the full versions to be made public.
- - - - - -
We've got to let people know --> At every chance, Roberts threw in front of key demographic groups continual hurdles to their advance — and THESE WILL NOT BE simply offset if Bush uses the event of Rehnquist's passing to name a woman, a Latino or an African-American to replace Sandra Day.
Just such a calculated move by the WH can not deflect the numerous insults and arguments mustered by Roberts to roll back federally-sanctioned (and legally enabled) progress for the disadvantaged. (Keeping Sandra O'Connor on a few extra months will not obviate this either.)
The NATIONAL COALITION For DISABILITY RIGHTS [+ ADA Watch] comes up with reasons to fight Roberts that reach further than their own constituents:
1st, N C D R cautions, "'Out of the Mainstream' Nominee Poses Threat to Americans With Disabilities ."
"Judicial Activism:"
Roberts' record demonstrates his inclination to strike down federal anti-discrimination statutes and to further limit congressional power, narrowly construe the ADA, and restrict the ability of plaintiffs to get into federal court.
. . . . His briefs and oral argument distorted the facts of the case and minimized the extent of Ella Williams' [v. Toyota] disability.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court believed Judge Roberts' misrepresentations and decided in favor of Toyota. It also came down with a new and very strict test for disability. This test has made it much more difficult for ADA plaintiffs to prove that they are disabled with devastating impact on people with epilepsy, diabetes, mental illness and workplace injuries.
Thus the consequences of Judge Roberts' distortions of the record ... helped to create yet another unfortunate Supreme Court precedent that has further impeded the goals of the ADA.
"Narrowing of Civil Rights Protections:"
After a Supreme Court decision effectively nullified certain [minority voter dilution] sections of the Voting Rights Act, Roberts was involved in the Reagan administration's effort to prevent Congress from overturning the Supreme Court's action.
The Supreme Court had recently decided that certain sections of the Voting Rights Act could only be violated by intentional discrimination and not by laws that had a discriminatory effect .... Roberts was part of the effort to legitimize that decision and to stop Congress from overturning it.
The outcome of these stricter interpretations of VRA violations can be seen clearly in the outcome of the Texas redistricting offense in 2003-2004. [This is still working its way through the courts.] The new districts which "cracked" and "packed" minority districts led to the only pickup of Republican House seats in November, 2004. That's right — 5 new seats in Congress, and not a one of them was outside the state of Texas. That's the result of the gerryDeLay-mandering, blessed by DoJ.
This DeLay/DoJ abomination was a direct consequence of the restrictions, which Roberts argued in the 1980s to retain, to require intentional discrimination, not just effective discrimination, to prove a violation of a voter's constitutional rights.
"Extremist Ideology:"
Mr. Roberts is a member of a right-wing legal group that, despite its name, promotes an extreme pro-corporate, anti-regulatory agenda: National Legal Center For The Public Interest, where he served on their Legal Advisory Council.
More
Later, in private practice, Roberts represented clients opposed to government affirmative action programs. Four years ago, he authored a "friend of the court" brief arguing that Congress had failed to prove that minority-owned construction firms were disadvantaged, so a law granting preferential treatment for minority-owned firms in highway contracts was unconstitutional.
The NAACP and its legal defense fund is gravely concerned.
Roberts helped shape
anti-civil rights policies during the Reagan administration concerning voting rights, affirmative action, housing and employment discrimination.
The [NAACP LDF] report quotes a memo Roberts wrote to Smith, concerning a dispute over the Labor Department's support of affirmative action, in which he states: " Under our view of the law it is not enough to say that blacks and women have been historically discriminated against as groups and are therefore entitled to special preferences."
In 1982, during congressional hearings on amending the
Voting Rights Act to protect against diluting the black vote, Roberts wrote
25 memos arguing the administration's opposition to such an amendment, the report said.
. . . He also criticized a U.S. Civil Rights Commission report outlining the need for affirmative action and filed briefs opposing affirmative action in his later career in private practice, the report said.
From USA Today
"As a deputy U.S. solicitor general under the first President Bush, Roberts urged the Supreme Court to rule that the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, known as Title IX, does not let victims of bias sue for money damages.
The court unanimously rejected his argument. . . .
"When he was a lawyer in the Reagan White House during the early 1980s, Roberts at times was dismissive about women's claims of discrimination. He referred to the "purported" gender gap and "perceived problems" of women's wages.
... Roberts was involved in efforts to curtail affirmative action, school busing and other programs intended to help minorities.
In 1982, he recommended that the White House aggressively oppose then-pending legislation to strengthen the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
I will be adding more to this diary, but I want to put it up now, first.
You can go through the comments thread, but you'll have to jump over the 1st comment someone put up totally off topic (New Orleans related).