Month: February 2022

The Washington Walrus’ Guide To The Supreme Court

The Washington Walrus’ Guide To The Supreme Court

Joe Biden has announced his first pick for the Supreme Court: Ketanji Brown. She would become the first Black woman appointed, should she be confirmed. Yes, the should has become a most dubious matter of late, since the Democratic majority hangs by a thin thread, as if taken from a cat-ravaged sweater. They’ll need every Democrat in the Senate on board and likely Kamala Harris too (as the deciding tie-breaker) should no Republicans offer support. Which they won’t.

Sadly, the Supreme Court nominating process has become embroiled in the same petty politics that dominates basically every other major appointment or campaign in Washington. And it’s much more consequential since Supreme Court justices don’t have terms limits (Clarence Thomas has been serving for 30 years now). So a lot is on the line. Plus, this is just replacing one Democratic appointee (Stephen Breyer) with another. The Republican appointees (i.e. conservative judges still hold a majority of 6:3 which is unlikely to change anytime soon. Can anything be done and what’s the best course of action? There’s really no clear-cut answers but we’ll delve into it, after first taking a look at the justices:

  1. John G. Roberts (Chief Justice; appointed by George W. Bush; 2005; confirmed 78-22 vote)
  2. Clarence Thomas (appointed by George H.W. Bush; 1991; confirmed 52-48 vote)
  3. Stephen G. Breyer (appointed by Bill Clinton; 1994; confirmed 87-9; to be replaced)
  4. Samuel Alito Jr (appointed by George W. Bush; 2006; confirmed 58-42)
  5. Sonia Sotomayor (appointed by Barack Obama; 2009; confirmed 68-31)
  6. Elena Kagan (appointed by Barack Obama; 2010; confirmed 63-37)
  7. Neil Gorsuch (appointed by Donald Trump; 2017; confirmed 54-45)
  8. Brett Kavanaugh (appointed by Donald Trump; 2018; confirmed 50-48)
  9. Amy Coney Barrett (appointed by Donald Trump; 2020; confirmed 52-48)

Just at a glance, a couple interesting points can be drawn:

  • The votes have become increasingly contentious (for the most part)
  • Donald Trump has secured three appointments in a single-term without even winning the popular vote

It would be incorrect to say this process hasn’t always involved politics or clashes over nominees. Indeed, history shows that as far back as Washington, there’s been rejection and compromise (when he failed to make John Rutledge the Chief Justice in 1795). John Tyler (the first VP to ascend to the top job) only had one of his five men appointed by the Whig-majority Senate. So, it’s nothing new exactly. But… it has gotten pettier and that bit more combative. In 2017, Trump appointed Gorsuch even though it was Obama’s duty to replace the conservative judge Antonin Scalia (the Republicans basically blocked Obama and delayed). Amy Coney Barrett was then quickly rushed through in the wake of Ruth Badger Gisberg’s death in 2020; appointed only a week out from election. (Her nominating process, between hearings and other such matters, took only 28 days, where it’s taken 2-3 months on average the last 50 years for other justices).

The short-circuiting and politicisation of this process has not been lost on the public. From August 2019 to January 2022, a PEW Research Center poll found favorability ratings of the court had fallen from 69% to 54%. Democrats are naturally more miffed , considering the general ideological imbalance. Many conservatives, unsurprisingly, find the court to be closer to neutral in their judgment. For Jack Schafer (writing in January for Politico), the differences of perspective are irrevocably hard to reconcile. He writes that Joe Biden’s declaration of Black female justice (motivated by endorsement of S. Carolina representative Jim Clyburn) parallels Reagan’s promise of a female justice in 1980. He also feels that judicial philosophies cannot easily be separated from personal ones (if at all) as evidenced by rulings which “track so closely with the positions of the parties whence they came”. Basically, nobody’s buying Amy Coney Barrett’s bullshit statement of apolitical duty and everyone has an agenda or bias anyways.

Had Joe Biden opted for a moderate justice then, would the path towards a more levelled Supreme Court be paved? It would be entirely naive to think so. Plus, he doesn’t have the luxury of experimenting since (again) they’re at a 6:3 disadvantage. Certainly though, it’s clear that the appointment of Brown has riled up conservatives who will paint her as ultra-liberal counterweight. And unless the current political discourse (as a whole) is tempered, we’re unlikely to see much change in the courts. Perhaps, Pete Buttigieg’s proposal of 15 justices (10 affiliated across both parties with 5 selected by them or something similar) would help dilute matters but it’d likely result in a bureaucratic mess too and given the popular perception of Washington as indecisive, one can’t imagine that playing out well.

Unfortunately, it may be a matter of simple expectations and hopes placed on the justices we have at present. Should Joe Biden add more, one can only imagine what a Republican president would do, in turn (even though they cheated with Gorusch and Barrett). Really, all he can do is try his best to get Brown through and maybe rally public support behind the values of his causes. Of course, then we go down the rabbit-hole of how liberal the Democrats should present themselves, among other things. And so we leave another article on another, nice ambiguous …

Book Bans In Schools

Book Bans In Schools

Book bans and boycotts are nothing new. Throughout history, select titles have caused ire amongst religious factions, political divides, and parents’ unions for various reasons. The Harry Potter novels, for example, received backlash in their heyday for the supposed influence of black magic at play. To Kill A Mockingbird has become a problematic novel for its use of racial slurs and the white saviour motif, despite once being heralded as an important text on racism. The Handmaid’s Tale is constantly challenged due to its depiction of sexual violence and religious criticism. There’s a long list with contentions that range from the expected to the head-scratching, and plain bizarre. Usually, however, these problems haven’t expanded beyond mere parent-teacher associations and small organisations. Usually. It seems now things might be starting to change.

With an “unprecedented” 330 book challenges recorded by the American Library Association (ALA) last Autumn/Fall, there’s been a sharp increase in calls to curtail cultural change, particularly in the South. Texas State Representative Matt Krause put over 800 books on a “watch list” recently; many of which deals with race and LGBTQ issues. In Oklahoma, there was a bill filed to ban books that address “sexual perversion”. In a county in Tennessee, the Holocaust-themed Maus was outright banned (for violent and sexual imagery). Police in South Carolina challenged The Hate U Give for perpetuating a “distrust in police”. And perhaps most surprisingly, Governor Greg Abbott (of Texas) called for criminal charges against school staff member providing access to young adult novels considered “pornography”. (This would be somewhat understandable for a school, except for the fact that you must question who deems the category.)

Despite popularising the term “snowflake” for liberals, it seems most of these contentions are coming from conservative factions and parents. Their concerns are not necessarily without merit, to be fair. It’s important for students to be given a broad and comprehensive reading list in their curriculum; not one which tilts too largely towards a political ideology. With that said, these challenges have expanded beyond any traditional coursework to libraries stocking books students may just happen upon. And… the process of taking these books down has been short-circuited with librarians growing weary of “concerns” and withdrawing controversial titles before the appropriate committee has even made a decision.

This is particularly unfair for LGBTQ students. Titles like All Boys Aren’t Blue and Heather Has Two Mommies have been challenged just because they don’t present an old-fashioned, heteronormative view in line with the cultural values of certain areas. It sends a message of exclusion to them while running the mistaken exercise of thinking you can shut out knowledge. As Emily Knox (author of Book Banning in 21st Century America) stated in an interview on Slate.com, “people are trying to get books like Maus banned because they are afraid that if their children read them, they will have different values” from their parents. Perhaps then, this can be seen as a desperate last leg to stand on in the generational and culture wars.

With the ALA reporting a 67% increase in attempts to ban school library books from September 2020 to September 2021, one can only worry where this will go next. Primarily, these contentions have come from the right, although it must be acknowledged that the left’s concerns over appropriate language for today’s sensibilities (with Mockingbird or something like Huckleburry Finn or Of Mice and Men) should draw concern and ridicule too. The banning and boycotting of any books, even with the best of intentions, reflects an insecurity on the part of the challengers as well as a high level of patronising. Hopefully, the #FReadom campaign in Texas (of school librarians), among others, will help reinforce the obvious notion that banning something makes it all the more interesting.