The White House's Kagan talking points are wrong

[IndianaGreen]

Friday, May 7, 2010 10:37 ET

The White House's Kagan talking points are wrong

We questioned Harvard Law's diversity record under Elena Kagan. The White House pushed back. But they got it wrong

By Guy-Uriel Charles, Anupam Chander, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, and Angela Onwuachi-Willig

The first woman Dean of Harvard Law School had presided over an unprecedented expansion of the faculty -- growing it by almost a half. She had hired 32 tenured and tenure-track academic faculty members (non-clinical, non-practice). But when we sat down to review the actual record, we were frankly shocked. Not only were there shockingly few people of color, there were very few women. Where were the people of color? Where were the women? Of these 32 tenured and tenure-track academic hires, only one was a minority. Of these 32, only seven were women. All this in the 21st Century.

One of us aired some of these concerns, which we expressed in a joint letter to the White House, on a blog. The White House never responded directly to us, but it did provide a defense of the Solicitor General’s record to concerned civil rights groups, who then made the document public. (Salon obtained a copy, which can be found here.) We are glad that the White House has responded to some of the questions that we have raised.

Unfortunately, the White House’s defense of the solicitor general’s hiring record while she was Dean at Harvard is surprisingly weak.

To begin, and most notably, the White House does not dispute our basic facts. When Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, four-out-of-every five hires to its faculty were white men. She did not hire a single African American, Latino, or Native American tenured or tenure track academic law professor. She hired 25 men, all of whom were white, and seven women, six of whom were white and one Asian American. Just 3 percent of her hires were non-white -- a statistic that should raise eyebrows in the 21st Century.

These are the facts that the White House does not try to defend because these facts are indefensible. For those who think that more women and minorities qualified to serve on the Harvard Law faculty were simply nonexistent, one need only look at Harvard’s primary rival--Yale Law School. There Dean Harold Koh led the law school during almost the same period (Dean Koh, from 2004 to 2009, and Dean Kagan, from 2003 to 2009). Dean Koh hired far fewer faculty members--just ten--but he still managed to hire nearly as many women (5 of 10 at 50 percent), and just as many minorities (1 of 10 at 10 percent) as Dean Kagan.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/2010/05/07/law_professors_kagan_white_house/index.html

[scheming daemons]

1. Yes... of course... she's an anti-women mysogynist

:eyes:

[IndianaGreen]

2. Kagan is a Republican

a little fact that no one seems to be interested in discussing.

[scheming daemons]

3. link please?

I call bullshit.

[msongs]

4. according to this link, she is a democrat ->

http://www.nndb.com/people/295/000167791/

whoever nndb is..

Msongs

[LittleBlue]

5. She supported the Bush administration's detention policies.

"During the Bush administration, the solicitor general argued for the White House's war-on-terrorism policies, including the president's decision to imprison foreign fighters and alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/11/nation/na-solicitor-general11

[FrenchieCat]

10. During the Bush Administration, Kagan wasn't the Solicitor General.......

so what did she argue exactly at that time, and why would she have?

This article was written before Ms. Kagan was ever confirmed.....
on February 11, 2009!....and the Solicitor General they are discussing that defended the
Bush administration is NOT Kagan.

You are using an old LA times to confuse folks, most likely cause you want them to be confused,
and so you spread this deception around....deliberately



Because the article starts......"If confirmed as U.S. solicitor general, Kagan, 48..."


in other words, you have an agenda here,
which is why you will never respond to
my pointing out that Kagan was not Solicitor General
at the time that the article was written, only under consideration,
and so the only Solicitor that they could have been talking about
was the Bush admin solicitor general....

and the sad thing is that you know this very well,
and you should also know that DU is not supposed to be
used as a place where folks post lies and propaganda
in order to sway folks to believes lies.

[4lbs]

17. Interesting that a "Republican" would be working closely with Thurgood Marshall, Clinton, and Biden.

Or....

She's not really a Republican, and you don't know what you are talking about.

[OHdem10]

6. Could it be they are pointing to the fact she hired 4 conservatives

while at Harvard. i suppose conservatives were a rarity
at the time. Not defending --just explaing.

[boppers]

7. Alleging discrimination, without any proof. Nice.

I love what FAUX has done to political discourse.

[ProSense]

8. "During her deanship, Kagan supported a long-standing policy barring military recruiters from campus

During her deanship, Kagan supported a long-standing policy barring military recruiters from campus, because she felt that the military's Don't ask, don't tell policy discriminated against gays and lesbians. According to Campus Progress,

As dean, Kagan supported a lawsuit intended to overturn the Solomon Amendment so military recruiters might be banned from the grounds of schools like Harvard. When a federal appeals court ruled the Pentagon could not withhold funds, she banned the military from Harvard’s campus once again. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court, which ruled the military could indeed require schools to allow recruiters if they wanted to receive federal money. Kagan, though she allowed the military back, simultaneously urged students to demonstrate against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.<14><15>

In October 2003, Kagan transmitted an e-mail to students and faculty deploring that military recruiters had shown up on campus in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policy. It read, "This action causes me deep distress. I abhor the military's discriminatory recruitment policy." She also wrote that it was "a profound wrong -- a moral injustice of the first order."<16>

more

[Enthusiast]

9. We don't want Kagan! nt

[FrenchieCat]

11. Because?

[Enthusiast]

12. Because she is a stealth conservative.

We want a REAL liberal on the court.

[WeDidIt]

13. Bullshit.

You just want to complain.

[Enthusiast]

18. Wrong. We have a lot to complain about. nt

[WeDidIt]

24. Bullshit

You just want to complain.

[Phx_Dem]

15. Who's "we?" Got a mouse in your pocket? n/t

[Phx_Dem]

14. I heard she hates women. And men. And minorities.

In fact, I think she hates everyone. She's a hater.

:sarcasm:

[AtomicKitten]

16. Haven't you heard? According to this one, she's another Scalia.

!!!ELEVENS!!!

[Enthusiast]

20. Are there any questions about Kagan?

We can't remove her once she's in. Something to be considered. Corporations have WAY too much influence already.

[AtomicKitten]

21. I've read lots of distortions about her. Do those count? nt

[Enthusiast]

22. Is there even one legitimate doubt

in your mind. Is she the perfect SCOTUS candidate?

[AtomicKitten]

23. Not my favorite, but she's not Scalia. That I do know. nt

[Enthusiast]

19. That's right. We don't want Kagan.

Just kidding. But really we don't want Kagan, series.

[hayu_lol]

25. What is her stand on...

choice? Can't find anything either way.

[Phx_Dem]

26. You haven't got her . . . yet. And you may not. n/t

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

27. She turned me into a newt!

I got better...