JUSTICES PASS NOTES TOO | Judge Rules In Harvard Admissions Case That Could Go Up To SCOTUS | Where Are The Women, And Why Aren’t They At The Supreme Court
October 2, 2019
PSSSSST!!!
|Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports on a practice of Supreme Court justices during oral argument in which they’ll sometimes pass notes between each other “like bored teenagers.” In one example, Bravin points to a note JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA wrote to JUSTICE HARRY BLACKMUN during the final argument of the 1990-91 term. It simply said, “Harry. Stay awake.” Bravin: “Such writings form a small, if illuminating, subset of some 15,000 handwritten documents that Timothy Johnson, a political-science professor at the University of Minnesota, has copied over two decades from archives housing the papers of former justices. The passed notes provide ‘an interesting insight into what they were thinking about as the attorneys were arguing,’ Mr. Johnson says. ‘They talked about sports, they talked about selling their houses.’ With proper arrangements, some scholars have been able to study the original documents. But for the broader public, the records remained buried in dusty stacks and are often impenetrable without detailed legal and historical knowledge—and an ability to decipher the fading scrawls of long-deceased jurists.”
I DON'T NEED BACK-UPS, I'M GOING TO HARVARD
|A federal judge ruled yesterday that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian Americans in its admissions process and that it does not violate federal vicil rights law by using race and ethnicity as factors in for admissions. The decision is likely to get appealed to the Supreme Court and ignite another national debate around affirmative action.
THAT'S A NO FROM ME DAWG
|Also yesterday, a federal judge in Georgia temporarily blocked a state law that would effectively ban abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy, the latest ruling to halt efforts by conservatives to severely restrict access to abortion across the country. The judge blocked the new law as a lawsuit challenging it proceeds, and he said the law probably ran afoul of women’s right to an abortion, which he said was guaranteed by the Constitution until about 24 weeks into pregnancy. Mihir Zaveri with The New York Times reports.
POLL DU JOUR
|A new Gallup poll finds that a slight majority of Americans (54%) approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing — a rating similar to what Gallup has previously found in the last three years. Unsurprisingly, however, views of the court vary significantly by party. 73% of Republicans approve and 38% of Democrats approve, with independents falling squarely between at 54%.
WHERE THEM GIRLS AT
|“Even as the legal profession pledges to bolster diversity in its workforce, the number of female lawyers who argue before the U.S. Supreme Court is still bafflingly low.” Baffling. Tony Mauro with The National Law Journal writes about the number of times in which women have appeared before the high court, as well as the low number of women in private practice in general. He covers a recent panel held by the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia titled “Supreme Court Advocacy: Where are the Women?” Participants went back and forth going over some of the underlying reasons for these low numbers, and the moderator, Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog, said at the panel’s conclusion, “I wish we could stop having to have these discussions.”
PERSONA NON GRATA
|Roxanne Roberts with The Washington Post explains that after his dramatic confirmation to the Supreme Court, BRETT KAVANAUGH remains a polarizing figure as he goes about his life in the D.C. area. At a neighborhood restaurant, a fellow patron will shout at the justice one night, while a different patron will applaud the jurist the next. Roberts writes, “On the rare occasions he has ventured out socially, it has been with welcoming audiences who insist on comity regardless of ideological or political differences. But he is also persona non grata in parts of the nation’s capital, where the veneer of politesse was stripped away by the nature of Ford’s allegations, Kavanaugh’s treatment of female senators during the hearings and the belief that civility — one of the cardinal virtues of Establishment Washington — should not be co-opted to excuse intolerable behavior. There are women who refuse to be in the same room as Kavanaugh, much less at the same dinner table.”
OTHER NEWS
The Supreme Court Showdown Over LGBTQ Discrimination, Explained
Vox“The Supreme Court will hear three cases next Tuesday that ask whether it is legal to fire workers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. That alone is enough to make them three of the most important employment discrimination cases in many years. But there are additional layers to these cases, layers that could imperil all workers regardless of whether or not they are LGBTQ.”
Appellate Veterans Jockey At SCOTUS To Contest Consumer Bureau
The National Law Journal“Conservative appellate lawyers from major U.S. law firms are vying against each other at the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices weigh whether to hear arguments against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency whose independent, single-director design long has drawn the ire of the financial industry and congressional Republicans.”
Little Sisters Bring Trump Birth Control Rule Back to SCOTUS
Bloomberg Law“The Little Sisters of the Poor wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision blocking a Trump administration rule that allows religious objectors to refuse to pay for birth control. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act required—or at least permitted—the government to adopt a religious exemption to an Obamacare rule requiring employer health plans to cover contraceptive care.”