Simply greater than half a century in the past, Thurgood Marshall, whom I later had the privilege of serving as a legislation clerk, was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to be the primary Black American to sit down on the Supreme Courtroom. The nomination triggered an outpouring of racist opposition from the southern members of the US Senate. But the nomination survived the hatred, and Marshall was confirmed.
Final fall, President Joe Biden nominated Adeel Mangi, my good friend and longtime accomplice, to be the primary Muslim American to sit down on a federal appeals court docket, the Third Circuit Courtroom of Appeals. Simply as with Marshall, Mangi’s nomination has triggered an outpouring of opposition grounded in hate, this time on the idea of faith, not race.
In most respects, Mangi is a pure appointee for the federal court docket. I’ve identified Mangi as each a good friend and colleague since I recruited him to hitch my legislation agency greater than 25 years in the past. I’ve by no means regretted that call for a day. He is an excellent and compassionate lawyer, a graduate of Oxford and Harvard. He has had a blinding profession as a business litigator. And like Marshall earlier than him, he has been a steadfast fighter towards bias. Joined by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Division, he has efficiently sued numerous communities for his or her discrimination towards Muslims. He has filed ecumenical briefs on behalf of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic spiritual organizations defending the rights of so-called Dreamers. He was rated extremely certified by the American Bar Affiliation. He can be an outstanding decide. However he’s additionally a Muslim, and as Marshall skilled, being first isn’t straightforward.
When Marshall was nominated to be the primary Black American to sit down on the Courtroom, the South was solely slowly rising from the period of segregated lunch counters; segregated faculties nonetheless existed all through a lot of the nation. Marshall confronted a hostile Judiciary Committee managed by a stable block of southern senators who had opposed all civil-rights legal guidelines. Their questioning of him consumed an unprecedented 5 days over the summer season of 1967. As The Washington Submit reported after the listening to’s first day, the senators “made clear … that they’re discovering it exhausting to swallow the nomination of Thurgood Marshall for the Supreme Courtroom.”
Because the listening to wore on, the racist nature of the senators’ objections turned unavoidable. Senator James Eastland of Mississippi requested Marshall, “Are you prejudiced towards white individuals within the South?” Though he had spent years within the South dodging white lynch mobs, Marshall mentioned he didn’t bear white southerners unwell will (besides maybe for one former courtroom opponent). Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina then requested questions that echoed the absurd literacy assessments that southern states had used to disqualify Black individuals from voting, questions that even most constitutional-law professors couldn’t reply from reminiscence. For instance: “Now, on the Fourteenth Modification, what committee reported out the Fourteenth Modification, and who have been its members?” Not surprisingly, Marshall didn’t know the reply. Seems Thurmond didn’t know the reply both, as was revealed when Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts demanded that Thurmond reply the query himself “for the document to be full.” In the meantime, invoking the McCarthyite suggestion that Marshall was a Communist, Eastland referenced a ebook that Marshall had talked about in a speech and requested whether or not he’d realized that the writer was “an avowed Communist.” Marshall had not. This didn’t stop Eastland from arguing later that Marshall confirmed Communist sympathies. Because of the persuasive powers of President Johnson, Marshall was nonetheless confirmed over the objections of the southern delegation.
Mangi has confronted comparable hateful bigotry, now from Republican senators who appear to imagine (or at the very least cater to those that do) that any Muslim is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. Though Biden’s different judicial nominees have been notably progressive and commendably numerous, they haven’t generated the toxic objections that greeted Mangi’s nomination. That’s undoubtedly due to the extraordinary bias that in the present day persists in our society towards Muslim People, fueled by leaders on the highest ranges of the Republican Celebration. In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to ban all Muslim immigration, and one among his first acts as president was an try to implement by govt order what he known as a “Muslim ban,” supposedly to guard towards “international terrorist entry.”
With this backdrop, it’s no shock that Mangi’s nomination has led to a repetition of Thurgood Marshall’s disgraceful remedy. Throughout Mangi’s affirmation hearings in January, Republican senators requested no questions on his unimpeachable authorized {qualifications}. As a substitute, with voices rising in indignation, actual or feigned, they advised that Mangi have to be a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana truly requested Mangi whether or not “you have a good time 9/11.” Mangi’s reply (when he finally obtained it out) bespoke his ties to his metropolis and his nation. “On 9/11, I used to be in New York. I noticed what was taking place. It was my metropolis. I don’t assume anybody can really feel extra strongly about what occurred than somebody who was there and noticed with their very own eyes smoke billowing from the towers. It was my metropolis that was attacked.”
When it was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas’s flip, he advised that Mangi was in some way a supporter of the Hamas assault on Israel. “Do you condemn the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists?” he requested. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who was presiding, shortly obtained right into a verbal brawl with Cruz over whether or not Mangi would even be allowed to reply the query. Ultimately, Mangi obtained to provide his response: “These occasions of October 7 have been a horror involving the demise of harmless civilians. I’ve no endurance for any makes an attempt to justify or defend these occasions.” This continued to be the tenor of the Republican questioning, with Mangi truly compelled to state that, sure, he’s against terrorism and genocide. “I’ll condemn with out equivocation any terrorism, any terrorist, any act of terrorism, any protection of terrorism.” As for genocide, it’s “completely horrific, and there could possibly be nothing that’s extra opposite to all the things that I stand for.”
What on earth is happening right here? My good friend isn’t a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, or an anti-Semite. These Republican senators couldn’t quote a single sentence ever uttered by Mangi, and couldn’t cite a single act ever taken by Mangi, at any time in his life, that means that he in some way helps terror. Slightly, your entire obvious pretext for his or her vitriol was Mangi’s presence for a time on an advisory board for the Heart for Safety, Race and Rights, an educational middle at Rutgers College, New Jersey’s preeminent public college. The board met every year to debate tutorial points that the middle may pursue. However the Republican critics didn’t elevate a single grievance concerning the advisory board’s precise work or Mangi’s work on the board. As a substitute, their alleged grievances centered on sure programming by the middle—which Mangi had no function in and even data of—that generally hosted controversial audio system concerning the Center East. That is, sadly, no completely different from alleging that Justice Marshall was a Communist as a result of he cited a ebook written by a Communist. It’s pure McCarthyism, guilt by affiliation.
Justice Marshall’s story had a contented ending. The ending of Mangi’s nomination continues to be to be written. He was voted out of committee by one vote, strictly alongside get together strains. A Senate vote on the nomination is but to be scheduled. In the meantime, a right-wing group is operating web adverts towards him in Montana and Pennsylvania, two states whose Democratic senators face powerful reelection fights. The adverts are much more disgusting than the questioning Mangi obtained within the Senate. They name him “anti-Semite Adeel Mangi,” characteristic images of the Twin Towers on fireplace, and recommend that he “hates Israel,” “hates America,” and “helps international terrorism.” That caricature isn’t the Adeel Mangi I’ve identified and labored with for greater than 1 / 4 century.
As soon as confirmed, my mentor Thurgood Marshall simply shrugged off his critics; he had spent his profession (and stored his sanity) doing simply that. I’m certain that if my good friend Adeel Mangi is confirmed on the deserves, as he deserves, he’ll do the identical.
