And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:28:37 EST
>Subject: Fwd: Justices Defend Minority Hiring
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>Subject: Justices Defend Minority Hiring
>Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:04:30 EST
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>Justices Defend Minority Hiring
>
>.c The Associated Press
>
> By LAURIE ASSEO
>
>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Supreme Court justices defended the court's record on
>hiring minority and female law clerks, telling high school students Thursday
>that the justices do the best they can in choosing from qualified applicants.
>
>``We do not discriminate here on the basis of gender or race or anything
>else,'' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said during an hour-long session with
>students from three high schools. ``We try to get the best we can.''
>
>Justice Stephen G. Breyer said it will take time to build the pool of
>qualified minority applicants. ``But even if you look at the numbers you can
>see how it's changing,'' he added.
>
>O'Connor and Breyer met in an elegant court conference room with students
from
>Benjamin Banneker High School of Washington and Mt. Vernon High School of
>Alexandria, Va. Students from Sandra Day O'Connor High School in Austin,
>Texas, participated by satellite hookup, and the session was televised
live on
>C-SPAN 2.
>
>O'Connor told the students she did not think the high court's daily routine
>would be disrupted if President Clinton is impeached and goes on trial in the
>Senate, where Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist would preside.
>
>Senate trial proceedings might not begin until the afternoons, she said,
>adding, ``So, presumably a little work could take place in the mornings'' at
>the Supreme Court.
>
>One of the students asked O'Connor and Breyer about the ``lack of diversity''
>among the court's law clerks.
>
>The NAACP and others have accused the court in recent months of hiring too
few
>minorities and women as clerks. The clerks help the justices screen new
cases,
>do research and draft opinions. USA Today reported that blacks make up less
>than 2 percent of the 428 law clerks hired by the court's current nine
>justices during their tenures and that fewer than 25 percent of those clerks
>have been women.
>
>In a recent letter to three black members of Congress, Rehnquist rejected
>calls for discussion of the issue with minority bar groups.
>
>Each justice hires his or her own clerks independently, O'Connor told the
high
>school students.
>
>``I've had clerks of different races,'' O'Connor said. ``I have had black
>clerks, I have had Asian clerks, I have had Hispanic clerks, I've had
Indian-
>Americans, Latvian Americans, Ukrainian Americans. You name it, I've had them
>and I try to hire a great many female clerks.''
>
>Breyer said the lower number of minority clerks reflects ``a world in which
>there has been considerable underprivilege, and that underprivilege is
>something that has to be corrected over time.''
>
>He said he has hired minorities among the 10 men and 10 women he has
chosen as
>clerks over the past four years.
>
>One student asked the justices which past high court cases they would like to
>have participated in.
>
>Breyer named the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case that ended school
>segregation, noting that he and O'Connor ``can remember a time when actually
>the law required segregation of the races.''
>
>The Brown ruling ``was nine people thinking the law could perhaps change the
>habits of more than 90 million people,'' Breyer added. ``Would you like to be
>involved in that? Sure.''
>
>O'Connor mentioned the 1803 Marbury vs. Madison decision that established the
>court's authority to declare federal laws unconstitutional.
>
>The two justices explained to the students how the high court works, from a
>decision to hear a case, through written briefing, oral arguments and a
>ruling.
>
>The justices often disagree strongly when they meet in private conference to
>discuss cases, Breyer said. However, he added, ``I have never heard a voice
>raised in anger.''
>
>Asked what the court will be like in the next century, O'Connor said it will
>work much as it does now, although the legal issues may be different.
>
>``Whatever the nation's concerns will be in the next century, those concerns
>will be reflected'' in the cases before the court, she said.
>
>AP-NY-12-10-98 1704EST
>
> Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
>news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
>distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
>
>
>
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