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supreme court

Senate Republicans Will Not Meet With Presidential Supreme Court Nominee

by Briana Tracy 02/24/2016

written by Briana Tracy

Photo by Kjetil Ree via Flickr

After Antonin Scalia’s passing, the United States Senate Republicans have remained firm on their decision to not replace Scalia’s seat until after the upcoming election. Now it has been reported that if President Obama was to select a nominee Senate leaders will not meet them.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky strongly urges President Obama to not make any Supreme Court nominations for he believes that the next president should pick and let the Americans decide. However, the decision whether or not to accept a nominee and hold a hearing is up to committee chairman Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.

In 1992, when Vice President Joe Biden was a senator he made a statement urging former President George H.W. Bush not to make a nomination to the Supreme Court until after that year’s presidential election. However, in regards to the vacancy of Scalia’s seat, it has been insisted that back then he had been warning against filling a vacancy created by a voluntary resignation of a justice rather than a vacancy created by an unexpected death; in any event, no such vacancy occurred.

02/24/2016 0 comments

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Supreme Court to Rule Over Obama Immigration Plans

by Briana Tracy 01/19/2016

written by Briana Tracy

Photo by Victoria Pickering via Flickr

Tuesday morning the Supreme Court agreed to take a look at the President Obama’s immigration plan which could potentially protect over four million immigrants from deportation. If the court rules in favor of plan the administration can start implementing changes as early spring. However if it is ruled against, the plan could be put on hold for years.

Photo by David via Flickr

Last year, some federal courts put this plan on hold; stating that because there was going to be significant changes the administration should have brought it to the public first. However, the Obama administration argues that the government can’t deport more than a small of fraction of the estimated eleven million illegal immigrants that are currently in the country.

Some states have argued successfully in courts of a lower stature that this policy will grant those who are here work-permit eligibility, lawful presence in the country, and access to social security, Medicare and other benefits of an US citizen.

You can read more here.

01/19/2016 0 comments

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Supreme Court Ruling Upholds State Ban on Affirmative Action

by 04/22/2014

written by

The Supreme Court expressed its stance on affirmative action Tuesday, ruling that the decision to consider race in college admissions rests solely in the hands of state legislatures.

Following Michigan’s statewide, voter-approved ban on affirmative action in 2006, the 6-2 decision upheld the states’ right to eliminate racial preferences from the college application process.

Speaking on behalf of the court majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that the case is not concerned with the constitutionality of affirmative action policies, but is rather a decisive decision on, “whether, and in what manner, voters in the States may choose to prohibit the consideration of such racial preferences.” According to Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justice Samuel Alito, the Constitution does not give the federal government the jurisdiction to rule against or in favor of affirmative action, and that Michigan’s voter-approved state initiative has legal authority under the premise of American democracy.

Michigan now joins California, Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington as the eight states that have outlawed the use of racial preferences in admissions to public colleges and universities. Underrepresented student enrollment in public universities has declined drastically in these states while, “Being especially harmful to Black students,” notes Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Sotomayor resolutely expressed the dissent of the minority, citing America’s complex history of racial discrimination and its devastating impact on access to “equal opportunity” for underrepresented racial minorities. In her 58-page dissent she wrote:

In my colleagues’ view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor also cites UCLA’s own changing racial demographics following Proposition 209 – California’s ban on race and gender-based college and university admissions. “The elimination of race-sensitive admissions policies in California has been especially harmful to Black students,” she writes. “In 2006, for example, there were fewer than 100 Black students in UCLA’s incoming class of roughly 5,000, the lowest number since at least 1973.”

Meanwhile, Black enrollment at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, suffers the same fate. The toll taken on UM’s campus diversity has become apparent as Black student enrollment decreased by 33 percent in the period between 2006 and 2011.

Ultimately the ability for states to enact statewide referendums banning affirmative action only heightens the imperativeness of voting and being active in democratic processes. The ruling may encourage other states to adopt similar constitutional amendments, thus voting is of great importance.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill states that widespread bans on affirmative action will not only effect the future of American higher education, but also the progression of the nation’s leadership. She notes that state colleges and university educate a large majority of a state’s leaders. Thus “It is the future leadership within the states of this country that is at peril.”

04/22/2014 0 comments

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Roe vs. Wade and The Black Community

by 01/27/2014

written by

Source: Soomo Publishing

Last week marked the 41^st anniversary of Roe v. Wade: a Supreme Court case that granted women the constitutional right to have an abortion within the first three months of pregnancy. Forty-one years later, the ruling enjoys the support of most American adults. According to Pew Researcher, 65% of American adults say they disfavor overruling Roe V. Wade, while 29% of adults welcome its appeal gladly.

However, the 41-year-old statue’s popularity is meager in the African American community. According to Guttmatcher Institute, a pro-choice non-profit organization that researches abortion laws, 49% of African Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong, 15% believe it is morally permissible, and 33% see abortion as a non-moral issue. Paradoxically, Black Americans, being among the nation’s biggest opponents of abortion, also have the most abortions. The Guttmatcher Institute found that African American women are 15 times more likely to have abortions than their White counterparts.

So, what does the anniversary of Roe v. Wade mean for African Americans?

For many in the Black community, the anniversary is an emblem of our nation’s depravity. “I think it’s wrong to kill a baby,” says Domale Keys, a UCLA grad-student studying Education, and the founder of Project AIDS Nigeria, a non-profit organization that seeks to combat aids in Nigeria. For Keys, as with many African Americans, life begins at conception. Arriving at this conclusion was the catalyst to her conversion from pro-choice to pro-life. She said, “I was pro-choice until I sat down and thought about it, and I was like, ‘wow…this is not right…’ People [who are pro-choice] really need to think about it.”

Others in the African American community see Roe V. Wade as a manifestation of social progress. According to the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, a global nonprofit, public interest organization based in Cambridge, prior to Roe V. Wade 5,000 women died annually due to illegal abortions. For students like Dominque Hall, a third year Sociology major at UCLA, Roe v. Wade is admirable precisely because it makes such ‘back-alley abortions’ unnecessary. Hall said, “Whenever you make something illegal, people are going to seek other methods to do what they want to do anyway… if they want to abort their baby they’re going to do it [illegally] unfortunately.”

But Lawrence E. Traylor Jr., a fourth year Afro-American Studies major and Political science minor, sees a middle ground between the warring ideologies—namely, education. Taylor argues, “Generally I think that education is the key to any ills that effect our community…everyone’s not going to agree [on everything]… but I think sexual education is the middle ground.”

Guttmacher’s research also found that the non-use of contraception is greatest among those who are young, poor, Black, Hispanic, and/or less educated. And so, perhaps, sexual education may indeed be the thin parcel of mutuality between the opposing factions; as an increase in contraception usage would equal a decrease in situations where abortion becomes an option.

01/27/2014 83 comments

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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court Will Make a Decision on Affirmative Action

by 10/15/2013

written by

“This decision is more significant than the Emancipation Proclamation”

Proposition 209 is a cruel and unusual punishment for the descendants of slaves. Historically, Black Americans have been deprived of humane treatment. Our government under the Three-Fifths Compromise has considered Blacks less than human. As a result, Blacks were forced into 300 years of abject unpaid servitude, were seen as livestock and beast of burden that were used solely to help white people accumulate enduring wealth. In the cotton and tobacco plantations in the south as well as in the factories (post slavery) in the north, Black labor was the foundation that built this country’s wealth. We have never been compensated, nor acknowledged for our contribution. No studies have been done on the psychological and sociological damage done through slavery and the social and economic injustice that we have endured throughout our existence in the United States.

Since slavery began, there has been a conspiracy to keep us unconscious. Teaching a slave to read was a death penalty offense in a lot of regions. When slavery ended those enslaved continued to be exploited, because the government and a significant portion of the citizenry did everything they could to keep Black people ignorant, disorganized and terrorized. The Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes made education for a Black person extremely difficult to attain. We have been systematically excluded from opportunities to attend the most prestigious universities based on standardized test scores. The Civil Rights Movement’s purpose was to amend many of the wrongs done to us. Knowledge and information is what allows the mind to expand and without higher education it makes it difficult for us to attain these virtues.

The schools in poor and Black neighborhoods do not prepare the students as well as the schools in the wealthy neighborhoods. Until all schools have the same level of instruction, there will always be a disadvantage in college enrollment to students who are underprivileged. Affirmative action is a minor way to help alleviate the disparity between privileged and underprivileged students. We need to have as many Black people in the Ivy Leagues as we do in jail. One generation of affirmative action does not make up for 300 years of pure evil and over 150 years of racism, hate, hangings, humiliation, exploitation, and disrespect. People in high places have always had a vested interest in keeping Black people away from higher education. Now they are trying to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights Movement.

Black people need access to the same information as the wealthy elite. However, we are systematically locked out because knowledge is power. Powerful white people have fought to help us get an education, but yet have used their powers to oppress us. Black people were slaves and now have become the under-class, which is the equivalent to the 21^st century slavery.

Given the history of Black educational deprivation and the state of the struggle for equality, race has to be a consideration for college admissions. That is the only way all races will have access to equal education and equal facilities. Poor Black people do not have access to the best. When we get access to the best, we do the best. An August report issued by The Center For Michigan states that, “On average, minority students tend to come from lower-income families and be less academically prepared for the rigors of universities. Nationally, a quarter of white high school graduates were considered fully academically prepared for college according to the ACT’s annual report released in August; only five percent of Black high school graduates were considered fully ready.” Given our cruel history of educational deprivation, Black Americans should be given special consideration when it comes to access to higher education. My late wife is an example of the good that comes from affirmative action; however, she is a Native American who benefitted from this policy. She graduated from UCLA and went on to graduate from the UCLA Law School and became one of the few specialists in her field. Because of her background she brought a different sensitivity to the discussion. Until you walk the streets in someone else’s shoes you have no clue as to what they go through. That is why we have to find a way to be included in everything. We have no voice when the G8 meets to decide what direction they want the world to go in. We are not there when the European Union meets. We are not included when it comes to the BIG decisions. We do not get to associate with the people who are being groomed to run things. The system is so stacked against us at every level, that you have to be blessed to reach age 25 and be independent. So I encourage all to save our youth, and keep up the fight for equal access to education.

Author: Malek Abdul-Mansour

Nommo Contributor

10/15/2013 118 comments