Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- Sign on to Affirmative Action Supreme Court Brief

Sign on to Affirmative Action Supreme Court Brief

Mitchell Zimmerman
Fenwick & West LLP
Silicon Valley Center
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Direct Phone No. 650-335-7228
Fax No. 650-938-5200
Main Phone No. 650-988-8500
Email: mzimmerman@fenwick.com

Hello, Veterans of the Southern Civil Rights Movement:

This is a longish email, but this main point is in this and the next paragraph: As you probably already know, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing an affirmative action case in which the University of Michigan considered race in law school admissions in the interests of having a racially diverse student body. The court could well use this case as an opportunity to deal a death blow to affirmative action in education.

Many others are filing briefs in the Supreme Court, supporting affirmative action, but we plan to file a short brief on behalf of veterans of the Southern Civil Rights Movement -- please reply to me (mzimmerman@fenwick.com) if you would like to be one of those on whose behalf the brief is filed. Many others will be filing papers in support of affirmative action, but I believe we have some special things that others are not in a position to say, that have a chance of actually moving the one or two possible "swing" votes on the Court. This really could make a difference!

The main point of this short brief would, in a sense, be the identity of the signers: people who suffering beatings and jailing and risked their lives in the struggle to secure equal rights for African Americans should have unusual moral authority when we say that America must not turn its back on the progress that has been made since the 1960s and 1970s. This progress has not been complete, but it is meaningful, and the Court should not point us back in the opposite direction. And if we are to effectively maintain this progress, we still need to take race into account in higher education generally and in law school admissions in particular, to ensure fairness and balance.

It is particularlyl paradoxical, we will also say, for conservatives to say they oppose any use of race in law school admissions, when as one of the conservative members of the Supreme Court -- Justice Clarence Thomas -- was himself appointed by a President who obviously took his race into account in selecting him. No one can say with a straight face that the first President Bush did not consider Justice Thomas's race at all in selecting him, that it was a complete coincidence that the first African American Supreme Court justice (Thurgood Marshall) was succeeded by a second African American judge. And Justice Thomas's positive role in the recent cross burning case illustrates that an African American judge can bring different insights and perspectives to problems -- he electrified the courtroom, in that case, when he 'reminded' the litigants and the other judges that burning crosses is symbolic of the "reign of terror" visited on black communities by the Ku Klux Klan for nearly 100 years, and that cross-burning is "intended to cause fear and to terrorize a population.'' If it is acceptable for race to be a factor in selecting justices for the highest court in the land -- and it should be -- why not for law schools?

Let's make our voice heard in the highest court, not only by demonstrating, but also by taking our position directly to those who will be deciding!

Mitchell

Mitchell Zimmerman (Arkansas SNCC 1966-67)