Our Rights, Our Future

Human Rights in Everyday Life

When most people hear the phrase “human rights,” they either think of something vaguely international, like genocide, torture, or fascist regimes; or they think of something so ethereal, idealistic, and lofty that it couldn’t possibly have a real application in their daily lives. 

But is it possible that you walked past a human rights violation on your way to work this morning? Is it possible that you know about human rights violations going on in your hometown and do not even realize it? And is it possible that your very own human rights or the human rights of your children, parents, grandparents, or friends are being violated?

Republicans Court Voters, Democrats Silent on the Courts

Cross-posted from The Huffington Post

Last Thursday, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee shook things up with major victories in the Iowa primary. As the candidates take their fight to New Hampshire, Americans are beginning to get a good sense of where the leading candidates stand on important issues. We have heard plenty so far in this, the longest presidential election in history, about the war, economy, health care, immigration, and religion. And we've heard a lot by the leading Republican contenders about the courts and judicial nominations.

But one would have to review hours and hours of speeches to dig up even a small reference to the courts by the three leading Democrats. Obama, Clinton and Edwards are all lawyers, but none of their campaign websites list the courts as a major issue. Even Stephen Colbert was more vocal about his vision for the courts. 

Why are the Dems silent on what may be the most important set of issues of our time, while the Republicans can't go five minutes without talking about judges and the courts? Are the Dems afraid? Is it tactical? Or do they just not get it?

The Courts' Rightward Shift 

You'd think the Dems would understand the importance of the judiciary in shaping our democracy. Whether it has to do with a woman's right to choose, the safety of the air we breathe and the water we drink, or whether our schools can work to overcome huge educational inequalities in classrooms that are now more segregated than any time since the 1970s, the courts are crucial. And the right has been, quite frankly, kicking our asses when it comes to the courts.

According to the L.A. Times, after nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush appointed nearly 300 judges to the federal benches, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts.

This change in who is on the court translates into a major shift in what's happening on the courts. Bradford Berenson, who worked in the White House counsel's office in Bush's first term said, "From Day One, President Bush made the judiciary a top priority, and he fought very hard for his nominees." The leading Republican candidates promise they too, will fight hard for nominees.

The Republican Candidates

Mike Huckabee

Huckabee has echoed the standard right-wing talking points on the need for "strict constructionist" judges. ("Strict constructionist," of course, is usually code for anti-choice, anti-civil rights, pro-big corporation, anti-immigrant, and anti-environment.) According to People for the American Way, Huckabee has pledged to support every item on the ultraconservative wish list -- a far-right Supreme Court, a constitutional ban on abortion, a veto of legislation to protect gay and lesbian Americans from discrimination, support for a bill to keep federal courts from intervening when local officials abuse the power of their office to promote their religious beliefs -- and more.

And Huckabee isn't afraid to talk about it. When asked about what kind of justices he would appoint to the Supreme Court-something the next president may get to do three or more times -- Huckabee's answer was: "My own personal hero on the court is Scalia, not least because I duck-hunted with him."

Mitt Romney

Huckabee's chief rival is in lockstep.  Mitt Romney has an entire page on his website devoted to "Preventing Judicial Activism," which is right-wing code for "judicial activism." Romney's site offers a series of quotes expressing his desire for judges that "won't legislate from the bench," which is also code, for "legislate from the bench." The page then continues to detail the right-wing view of the Democratic agenda, with a cutting-edge, new 21st century frame: "liberal, judicial activism."

We've already talked about Giuliani getting into bed with the Federalist Society and promising 200 Scalia-like appointments, so we won't repeat that here. Though we should point out that at least New Yorkers wouldn't have to foot the bill alone this time.

While progressives may not agree with these candidates' view of the judiciary, we certainly admire their understanding of the issues and their ability to effect change. We also should respect that they aren't afraid to talk about these critical issues. Too bad we can't say the same thing about the Dems.

The Democratic Candidates

Hillary Clinton

Review of Clinton's stump speeches yields very little about her views on nominations. We know that she is a smart lawyer and that she served on the board of the Legal Services Corporation. We also know that her first case involved successfully defending a corporation that had left the rear end of a rat in a can of pork and beans. We do not know what she thought of the first judge that she faced.

Most of the information about Clinton's view comes from her failed opposition to certain judicial nominations. In 2005, during the intense debate over the filibustering of some of Bush's nominations and the "nuclear option" (pronounced nu-cu-lar), Clinton kept a low profile, though she did vote to end debate on the nominations, thereby allowing the nominations to come to a vote. She subsequently voted against three nominees, but all were confirmed. She, like her two rivals, came out strong against last term's decision regarding a woman's right to choose.

John Edwards

Edwards' success as a trial lawyer representing injured people is well documented. Though, like Clinton, his platform doesn't include judicial nominations. Aside from his spectacular speech at the American Constitution Society in 2005, he has not addressed nominations and the rollback of civil rights in depth. And like Clinton, he too was opposed to the nomination of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Barack Obama

Obama is the only candidate of the three leading Democrats that has a platform plank for civil rights. Nevertheless, Obama's approach to civil rights has more to do with improved government enforcement of existing civil rights laws and legislative fixes than the courts. Though noteworthy, Obama's plank does not seem to include nominations, which could make any legislative fixes short-term wins that could be up-ended by right-wing judges.

Ask Them!

Maybe the reason the Dems aren't talking about the courts is because no one is asking them. Maybe they think we just don't care. Well, we can change that: let's ask them.

Progressives need to start asking tough questions about where all the candidates stand when it comes to the future of the courts. It's particularly amazing how quiet and meek progressive lawyers seem to be acting in the run-up to November. There is no way lawyers in Pakistan would sit idly by as their Constitution and civil rights are eviscerated.

Complaining about a nominee that has already passed the confirmation process is simply not enough. These candidates need to set forth a vision for what the courts will look like, and whether they will once again serve their intended purpose: to protect and preserve equal justice, fairness, and opportunity for all people in the United States. Luckily for progressives, the Alliance for Justice Action Campaign just launched a new site to help you know where the candidates stand, and how to reach out to them with your questions.

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights will follow up with another piece discussing the differences between how the progressive and right-wing legal communities promote agendas for legal reform during elections.

More on "Why We Can't Wait: Reversing the Retreat on Civil Rights"

The conference came to a close in the blink of an eye, in a multitude of informative break-out sessions and discussion panels.  After the opening session, the Reverend Dr. William Barber II of the North Carolina Conference NAACP delivered the key note address, calling upon the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to assure us that it is truly possible for everyone to have life, liberty, property, and to pursue happiness. Barber argued that we must have a civil rights movement that is not based on an election, but is grounded in the sustained prophetic politics of justice, or the conviction that we should not accept anything less than justice for all people.  He said that progressive Americans who have focused their energy on creating electoral change or argued to prioritize specific agenda items are missing the boat, as even politicians with best intentions become coopted by the system. Barber had the audience applauding and smiling when he proclaimed "you don't just want a new master that's nicer!," but rather require a fundamental overhaul of the political system that will redress racism and inequality based on the faith that all things are possible.

The conference schedule details the themes of the eight break-out sessions, on topics ranging from employment discrimination to the importance of treating immigration issues as civil rights issues.  Friday afternoon concluded with a panel geared toward addressing the rollback of civil rights.

Saturday morning began with a discussion on the ways we can integrate the human rights paradigm into civil rights work. The substantial gap between human and constitutional rights marks the need to transcend the historical civil rights framework in favor of calling upon the human rights with which we are all born.  There is a tendency among Americans to think that we don't need to talk about human rights because we thought that our previous civil rights victories had taken care of whatever struggles we were facing -- but in the era of the civil rights rollback by the courts, of people displaced by Hurrican Katrina, and post-9/11 torture, this is just not the case.  Human rights discourse can serve as a guideline to get us back what we have lost, and provide us with a vision of the important economic and social rights our nation also tends to ignore.  And for civil rights advocates, human rights language can serve to "reinvigorate" our work.

One area in which the human rights framework has been employed with regularity is in prisoners rights work. Our justice system has looked to other countries for guidance in best practices, on issues such as the supervision of female prisoners by female guards in order to prevent sexual abuse, even subsequently deciding to outlaw the death penalty for juveniles. Policy Analyst Ryan King of The Sentencing Project spoke of the little-known fact that felony convictions remove your right to vote for life -- in some states, 1 in 4 african american men cannot vote due to this policy, and nationwide, 13% of African American men are unable to vote. States also have widely different definitions of felonies, intended to deny the black population of its fundamental right to participate in our democracy.  In situations like this, we need to call upon human rights norms in order to illustrate how far we still have to go to achieve a just society.

The second and last panel of the day concerned next steps, an articulation of what actions we can take to build the movement for civil and human rights.  Participants advocated for a unified agenda which would connect and coordinate a three-pronged approach to reclaiming our rights:

• The first thing we need to work on is legislative advocacy or lobbying, fixing bad laws and enacting legislation where there are holes in current laws.  An example of this is work to promote the Fair Pay Act pending in Congress which would correct the loophole that allowed Goodyear Tire Co. to discriminate against Lilly Ledbetter with no recourse.  As a short soundbyte, this work we need to is about increasing access to the courts, the only governmental institution we can depend upon to enforce our rights.  Campaign finance reform is also something that could use serious attention, as it drives the marginalization of the lower-income population.
• The second approach concerns grassroots activism, the need to involve people involved at the local level with the particular issues at stake.  From health care organizing to social work, we need to capitalize on the idea that ideas only stick through action in order to get more people involved.  Media work is also an important component of the need to democratize the movement and spread the word about the rollback -- and developing a presence in both mainstream and new media (blogs, social networking, online video, etc) is crucial to ensuring that people without financial means get to tell their stories and have a voice in the debate about our freedoms.
• The third leg of our work is strategic litigation, the continued effort by lawyers to call upon the justice system in a productive manner that will enable us to protect with fundamental rights by a system of damages.  As our court system changes and becomes dominated by the right-wing, it is also important to remember that judges that refer to themselves as conservatives are banking on a connotation that is not accurate.  According to Marianne Engleman-Lado of the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights, these conservative judges "love change, and they're changing our rights."

One speaker in the closing panel asserted that Americans are "born tired of equality," and that we only live up to our values when we are able to illustrate that the need to do so is urgent.  To quote 17-year-old Jody Leong, winner of our Kids Speak Out essay contest, "The time is now."

Rollback Will Affect the 'Jena Six'

Back in September 2006, a group of African-American students chose to sit under the 'white tree' at their Louisiana high school. The following day, three nooses were found hanging from the bows of the same tree. In response, school officials suspended the three white students who were found responsible.  The local prosecutor 'declined to charge' the white students.

The six black students then allegedly beat up a white student to the point of unconsciousness, although he was released from the hospital and was well enough to attend a school function that same evening. The same prosecutor then saw that these six young men were each charged with attempted murder in the second degree, which was later reduced to second degree aggravated battery and conspiracy.   

Mychal Bell was only 16 years old at the time of the schoolyard fight, yet he was convicted by an all-white jury and faced up to 22 years of imprisonment. Given that he was wrongfully tried as an adult, the charges against him have been vacated, but he remains in an adult prison. The charges against the remaining five men are still pending.

Today, thousands of people descended upon the town of Jena, LA to rally in support the young men known as the 'Jena Six.' The protesters in Jena and those who have organized corresponding events around the country hope to highlight the unjust treatment received by these young men who were victims of malicious and selective prosecution. The Jena Six have become symbolic of the racism that still pervades our criminal justice system, as well as our media.

Despite months of public outcry among the black blogosphere and defenders of civil rights, mainstream media have been very slow to report on the Jena Six. The New York Times only picked up the story yesterday, and CNN has managed to report on it in a way that normalizes the unfair racial dynamics at issue.

Because of the rollback of civil rights in the area of prosecutorial misconduct, the students in this case may never be able to seek justice against this prosecutor for unfair prosecution.  More to come on two critical Supreme Court cases that rolled back the rights of people victimized by overzealous prosecutors.

Courts Can Change

Sometimes I wonder about what goes on in the mind of Supreme Court Justices. What really impacts their ruling? Does the society in which we live in shape their decisions or do their decisions shape society? I got the chance to play the role of a Supreme Court Justice in a mock trial today. I am currently attending an academic summer camp for high school students at the University of California, San Diego. I am taking a course called "Law, Politics, and the Supreme Court."

At first, I thought I was just going to be sitting in a classroom listening to lectures and learning a list of law jargon. But, I was wrong. When I stepped into the classroom, I realized I was in for a different experience. For the past couple of days, our class has been doing our own trials on previous Supreme Court cases. We get briefings and play the role of advocates, oracles, and justices. When I was playing the role of a Supreme Court Justice during our mock trial, I felt a sense of power.

When the trial was over, I had to make my decision on the case. Before announcing my verdict, I realized something. Supreme Court Justices are normal people. Their views on issues can change. They are never set in stone. Just because a court makes a ruling, it does not necessarily mean that society will stay that way forever. I came to realize the power of persuasion and remembered Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, "Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel." Things can change, and it is up to the people to speak out. The recent Supreme Court rulings clearly rolled back the civil rights that our country took many years to earn.

When I played the role of an advocate during the next mock trial in class, I was able to persuade my fellow classmates to change their view on an issue.

The recent Supreme Court ruling took a step backward for civil rights, but it can still take many steps forward in the future.

Posted by Jody Leung, high school student

Activist Supreme Court or no big deal? You decide.

Left? Think Progress says the Supreme Court's recent decisions side with corporations and the current administration. Bill Scher says our Court is gripped by activism. Grist reports that an attorney called this "an important win for the business community."

Right? Redstate.org says these cases are no big deal.

What do you think? Sound off by posting a comment.