Lani Guinier

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Carol Lani Guinier (born April 19, 1950 in New York City ) is an American lawyer, university professor and civil rights activist . She mainly deals with the topics of race, gender and democratic and representative decision-making processes (especially on the right to vote or on affirmative action ).

Lani Guinier at the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Poor People's March on Washington DC (1998)

Origin and education

Guinier comes from a family of lawyers: her grandfather was a barrister who studied at Cambridge . Her father Ewart Gunnier (died 1990) was the first chairman of the Department of African-American Studies at Harvard University . With Eugenia "Genii", b. Paprin (died 2009), he had two other daughters in addition to Lani; the Jewish mother attached great importance to intercultural understanding when raising her daughters.

After graduating third from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens , Lani Guinier studied on a scholarship from the National Merit Corporation and The New York Times at Radcliffe College , where she received her BA cum laude in June 1971 . In June 1974 she received her JD at the Law School of Yale University . At Yale, Guinier met Bill Clinton and his future wife Hillary Rodham .

Career

From August 1974 to August 1976, Guinier worked in Detroit as a law clerk for Damon J. Keith, then presiding federal judge for the Eastern District of Michigan (later judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th district). From September 1976 to September 1977 she was the Juvenile Court Referee in Wayne County, Michigan Juvenile Court . She worked as a special assistant for Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days in the Civil Rights Division. From October 1977 to February 1981 she was employed by the United States Department of Justice . From April 1981 to July 1988 she worked as an Assistant Council for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Here she was primarily entrusted with representing electoral law cases in court. In her capacity as LDF attorney, she sued the state of Arkansas in 1984 at the time when Bill Clinton was its governor for Arkansas' statute for deputy voter registration ; the case ended in a settlement.

In 1986 Guinier married the lawyer Nolan A. Bowie; the ceremony took place at her father's home in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts and was presided over by Damon J. Keith; the Clintons were guests. Guinier has a son with her husband.

From 1985 to 1989, Guinier was an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law. From July 1988 to June 1992 she was Associate Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and from July 1992 to June 1998 full Professor of Law there.

Nomination as Assistant Attorney General

On April 29, 1993, United States Attorney General Janet Reno announced various nominations for positions in the Department of Justice for the Clinton administration , including Guinier as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. Guinier's nomination gave rise to a controversy started by conservatives, which in particular had their writings on the Voting Rights Act and, in connection with it, their criticism of the American majority suffrage; Guinier ruled, among other things with recourse to James Madison , that this represented minorities insufficiently or suppressed them tyrannically ; Instead , it advocated cumulation , multi-mandate constituencies and qualified majorities . Recurring allegations were that Guinier fundamentally rejects the principles of Majority Rule and One Person, One Vote and advocates race quotas. A first attack against Guinier came through a comment by Clint Bolick in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ, then America's most widely read newspaper) on April 30 with the headline Clinton's Quota Queens (an allusion to the Welfare Queen and quota system ); in the article by Norma V. Cantu also attacked another nominee, claimed Bolick, Guinier ideas would on a racial apartheid tantamount system (Bolick continued his campaign in the program Morning Edition. by NPR continued); A week later, Paul Gigot warned in the WSJ that Guinier was the reincarnation of John C. Calhoun and would be better suited to the Bosnia division at the Foreign Office . Joe Klein , in Newsweek, described Guinier's ideas about the right to vote as race-based gimmicks . John Leo claimed in US News and World Report that Guinier described whites as a racist political monolith. The New Republic described Guinier as firmly believing in an irreducible, racial "we" and "them" in American society; in the same magazine, Abigail Thernstrom claimed that Guinier would begin with a complete distrust of white America; Lally Weymouth quoted Thernstrom in the Washington Post that Guinier was a left wing candidate and spokesperson for radical politics and did not believe in the democratic process; Weymouth also let Will Marshall , head of the Progressive Policy Institute and leading New Democrat, speak, who accused Guinier of demanding an unprecedented expansion of judicial oversight over state legislatures and thus racial legal claims, contrary to Clinton's view. Conservative groups such as the Institute for Justice , but also liberals such as the American Jewish Congress opposed Guinier's nomination. Senate votes against Guinier came from both Republicans and Democrats: Orrin Hatch described Guinier as the architect of racial preferences that would set America on the path of racial Balkanization ; Alan K. Simpson characterized Guinier's writings as very troubling and recommending reverse racism ; Bob Dole called Guinier a consistent supporter of quotas and electoral fraud schemes; Democratic Senator Joe Biden was concerned about Guinier's writings. The Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy distanced himself from Guinier, as did Patrick Leahy , who complained, however, that Guinier was tried in the press; Democratic Senator Carol Moseley Braun did not come to Guinier's aid (and was criticized for it; Clinton later noted in his autobiography that Kennedy and Moseley Braun had both advised him to withdraw the nomination); Guinier also received rejection from Raoul Lowery Contreras , in the New York Times as well as from people like Al From or AM Rosenthal and generally from the centrist to conservative liberals of the New Democrats . One of the most verbose opponents of Guinier in the House of Representatives was Dave McCurdy , head of the Democratic Leadership Council . During this process, the White House publicly supported Guinier (mainly through press officer George Stephanopoulos ), but was already preparing to withdraw the nomination; Meanwhile, Guinier met on his own with individual senators (such as Arlen Specter , Dennis DeConcini , Herb Kohl , Howard Metzenbaum and Alan K. Simpson) to convince them - largely successfully - of their nomination.

The White House was informed on the evening of June 2 by approximately two dozen Democratic senators that only a minority of the members of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary were likely to vote for Guinier and that the White House would have to withdraw the nomination. Clinton asked Guinier to withdraw the nomination himself; Guinier refused and instead publicly defended her views on ABC's Nightline for the first time in the evening . The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) demanded on June 3 that Clinton defend the nomination. That evening, Clinton met Guinier in the Oval Office; after the meeting, he informed her by phone of the withdrawal of the nomination. The next day, Clinton stated that he had not read Guinier's writings at the time of her nomination; he made up for it and concluded that they clearly lend themselves to an interpretation that contradicts his own views on civil rights. President Clinton himself stated his objection to Guinier's writings by citing an article by Guinier in the Michigan Law Review that Guinier had argued in general for proportional representation and minority veto; Clinton called this an inadequate panacea as well as anti-democratic and difficult to defend. Clinton later named Guinier's supposed assessment of Virginia Douglas Wilder's (black & Republican) governor (as not authentically black) and her suggestions regarding Etowah County , Alabama.

In retrospect, Anthony Lewis ruled that Guinier, who actually explicitly rejected race quotas and had no radical ideas, had become the target of one of the most effective smear campaigns since the days of Joe McCarthy . David Corn found Guinier had been demonized like no other public figure since Anita Hill ; the attacks were motivated by racism and the need to portray even the most modest civil rights activism as dangerous. Although conservative politicians and academics had started the attacks, the American media had made themselves accomplices (which Corn includes Nightline and The New York Times ). Randall Kennedy judged that the portrayal of Guinier by her opponents as an anti-integration, racial separatist was completely wrong. Stephen L. Carter found that the media had largely passed false accusations against Guinier as true. Commentators saw similarities in Guinier's failed nomination to President Ronald Reagan's failed nomination for Robert Bork to the Supreme Court ( when asked about it on Nightline , Guinier noted that Bork had received at least one hearing) and to Clinton's failed nominations of Zoë Baird and Kimba Wood (“ Nanny Gate “) And Clinton's behavior in the Sister Souljah scandal . Legal scholars such as Richard Briffault, Michael E. Lewyn and Arthur Eisenberg challenged the portrayal of Guinier as radical and undemocratic in the media and defended their writings. Jane Rhodes condemned the media as an accomplice in creating and promoting Guinier as the embodiment of the most hated aspects of affirmative action, the affirmation of the image of the undeservedly and favorably received poor at the expense of white men.

Guinier found herself misunderstood by Clinton and others and regretted that she had not been able to defend her views in the Senate hearing. She also criticized the support from the White House as inadequate, citing as an example that she was only assigned a Justice Department employee 28 days after the nomination. Senators Paul Wellstone and Arlen Specter voiced criticism of Clinton's withdrawal from Guinier's nomination . Harsh criticism of Clinton also came from the black press (including The Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper , The New York Amsterdam News and The New Journal and Guide ), which held back during the nomination phase. Clinton himself scheduled a meeting with disgruntled civil rights and women's rights representatives (including Kweisi Mfume , head of the CBC; Jewell Jackson McCabe, founder of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women ; Joseph Lowery , director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Dorothy I. Height , president of the National Council of Negro Women; Elaine Jones , legal director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Eddie N. Williams , director of the Center for Joint Political Studies); a few days later, Mfume canceled the CBC's participation in the meeting. Vice President Al Gore was interviewed on June 3rd on Nightline .

Further academic career

In the 1996 winter semester, Guinier was visiting professor at Harvard Law School. Guinier has been Professor of Law at Harvard Law School since July 1998, where she has held the Bennett Boskey Professorship since September 2001. Guinier was also a visiting professor in law at Columbia Law School from September to December 2007 , was a fellow at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in spring 2009, and was visiting professor in law at Yale Law School from September to December 2011.

literature

  • Joseph Michael Green: Your Past and the Press! Controversial Presidential Appointments: A Study Focusing on the Impact of Interest Groups and Media Activity on the Appointment Process . University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland et al. a. 2004, pp. 76-83, 125-145, passim .
  • Kathryn Cañas, Mark Lawrence McPhail: Demonizing Democracy: The Strange Career of Lani Guinier. In: Patricia A. Sullivan, Steven R. Goldzwig: New Approaches to Rhetoric . Sage Publications , Thousand Oaks, California 2004, pp. 223-243.

Monographs

  • The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy . Free Press, New York 1994, ISBN 0-02-913172-3 .
  • with Michelle Fine and Jane Balin: Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law Schools and Institutional Change . Beacon Press, Boston 1997, ISBN 0-8070-4404-0 .
  • Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice . Simon & Schuster , New York 1998, ISBN 0-684-81145-6 .
  • with Susan Sturm: Who's Qualified ?: A New Democracy Forum on Creating Equal Opportunity in School and Jobs . Beacon Press, Boston 2001, ISBN 0-8070-4335-4 .
  • with Gerald Torres: The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy . Harvard University Press , Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-674-00469-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Neil A. Lewis: Woman in the News; Guerrilla Fighter for Civil Rights: Carol Lani Guinier. In: The New York Times. May 5, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Eugenia Paprin (Genii) Guinier. Obituary. In: The Boston Globe. Retrieved July 25, 2013 .
  3. ^ A b c Margaret C. Lee: Lani Guinier. In: Jessie Carney Smith (Ed.): Notable Black American Women . Book II. Gale Research, Detroit 1996, pp. 261-263.
  4. ↑ a b c d Lani Guinier, racially deep and passionate. In: African American Registry. Retrieved August 13, 2013 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f LANI GUINIER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE EDUCATION. (PDF; 187 kB) Harvard Law School, April 2013, accessed on August 13, 2013 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c d Robert A. Rankin: Indecisiveness A Trademark Of Clinton Tenure He Nominated Lani Guinier. When Controversy Arose, She Was Left To Defend Herself With No Help From Him. Then He Withdrew The Nomination. In: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philly.com, October 6, 1996, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  7. ^ Lani Guinier: Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice . Simon & Schuster, New York 1998, p. 25.
  8. ↑ Lani Guinier: Lani Guinier's Day in Court: Who's Afraid of Lani Guinier? (PDF; 1.5 MB) In: The New York Times Magazine. Harvard Law School, February 27, 1994, pp. 40f. , accessed on August 13, 2013 .
  9. ^ A b Nancy Waring: Lani Guinier: Present and Visible. In: Harvard Law Bulletin. Harvard Law School, 1999, accessed August 13, 2013 .
  10. ↑ David Johnston: Reno Completes Most of Lineup At Justice Dept. In: The New York Times. April 30, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  11. ↑ These included (see Margaret C. Lee: Lani Guinier. In: Jessie Carney Smith (ed.): Notable Black American Women . Book II. Gale Research, Detroit 1996, p. 262) the following articles by Guinier: “No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political Equality, ”in: Virginia Law Review. November 1991; “Keeping the Faith: Black Voters in the Post-Reagan Era,” in: Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 1989; “The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success,” in: Michigan Law Review. March 1991; for a discussion of the contents, see Randall Kennedy : Lani Guinier's Constitution. In: The American Prospect . Vol. 4 No. September 15, 1993.
  12. ↑ Green 2004, p. 125.
  13. ↑ Clint Bolick: Clinton's Quota Queens. In: Wall Street Journal. April 30, 1993, p. A12, p. Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 234.
  14. ↑ a b Green 2004, p. 126.
  15. ^ Joe Klein: Principles or politics? In: Newsweek . June 14, 1993, p. 29, p. Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 235.
  16. ↑ John Leo: A controversial choice at Justice. In: US News and World Report . May 17, 1993, p. 19, p. Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 235.
  17. ^ Withdraw Guinier. In: The New Republic. June 14, 1993, p. 7, p. Cañas and McPhail 2004, pp. 234f.
  18. ↑ Abigail Thernstrom: Guinier miss. In: The New Republic. June 14, 1993, p. 18, p. Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 235.
  19. ↑ a b Lally Welmouth: Lani Guinier: Radical Justice. In: The Washington Post. May 19, 1993, sec. A, p. 1, s. Green 2004, p. 78.
  20. ↑ Michael Kelly: Clinton Myth of Nonideological Politics Stumbles. In: The New York Times. Retrieved July 25, 2013 .
  21. ^ Neil A. Lewis: Clinton Faces Battle Over a Civil Rights Nominee. In: The New York Times. May 21, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  22. ↑ a b c Randall Kennedy : Lani Guinier's Constitution. In: The American Prospect Vol. 4 No. September 15 , 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  23. ↑ Green 2004, pp. 77, 132.
  24. ^ Shirley A. Wiegand: Analyzing the Testimony from a Legal Evidentiary Perspective: Using Judicial Language Injudiciously. In: Sandra L. Ragan (Ed.): The Lynching of Language: Gender, Politics, and Power in the Hill-Thomas Hearings . University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1996, p. 22.
  25. ^ Bill Clinton: My Life . Arrow Books, London 2005, p. 523.
  26. ^ Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 229.
  27. ↑ Green 2004, pp. 79, 91f; Lani Guinier: Lani Guinier's Day in Court: Who's Afraid of Lani Guinier? (PDF; 1.5 MB) In: The New York Times Magazine. Harvard Law School, February 27, 1994, pp. 42f. , accessed on August 13, 2013 .
  28. ^ Neil A. Lewis: SENATE DEMOCRATS URGE WITHDRAWAL OF RIGHTS NOMINEE. In: The New York Times. June 2, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  29. ^ Terence Hunt, Robert A. Rankin: Guinier Vows To Fight On A Senior Aide Said Clinton Has Said The Nomination "Has No Future." The Penn Professor Defended Herself On Tv Last Night. In: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philly.com, June 3, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  30. ^ Cox News Service: Writings Of Lani Guinier And Her Comments About Them. In: Orlando Sentinel. June 4, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  31. ^ Neil A. Lewis, AIDES SAY CLINTON WILL DROP NOMINEE FOR POST ON RIGHTS. In: The New York Times. June 3, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  32. ^ Transcript of President Clinton's Announcement. In: The New York Times. June 4, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  33. ^ President's Reading Of Nominee's Work. In: The New York Times. June 4, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  34. ↑ RW Apple Jr: THE GUINIER BATTLE; President Blames Himself for Furor Over Nominee. In: The New York Times. June 5, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  35. ^ Anthony Lewis: Abroad at Home; Anatomy Of a Smear. In: The New York Times. June 4, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  36. ↑ David Corn: Sinking Guinier. In: The Nation . 256 (1993), p. 856, see Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 235.
  37. ↑ Green 2004, p. 126f.
  38. ↑ See Green 2004, passim. See also Margaret C. Lee: Lani Guinier. In: Jessie Carney Smith (Ed.): Notable Black American Women . Book II. Gale Research, Detroit 1996, p. 263; Leon Friedman, Burt Neuborne: Attack on Civil Rights Nominee Is Unfair. In: The New York Times. June 3, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 . ; David Margolick: Musty Academic Speculation or Blueprint for Political Action? In: The New York Times. June 4, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  39. ↑ David O'Reilly: Enter, Stage Left: Lani Guinier The Former Nominee For Assistant Attorney General For Civil Rights Remains In The National Spotlight, Speaking To Crowds Eager To Hear Her Views On Race And Rights. In: Philadelphia Inquirer. Philly.com, December 2, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 . ; David Margolick: At the Bar; An all-star New York lawyer disputes the idea that he's become a White House bumbler. In: The New York Times. June 11, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  40. ↑ Green 2004, pp. 130f.
  41. ↑ Richard Briffault: Lani Guinier and the dilemmas of American democracy. In: Columbia Law Review. 95: 418-472 (1995); Michael E. Lewyn: How radical is Lani Guinier? In: Boston University Law Review. 74: 927-951 (1994); Arthur Eisenberg: The Millian thoughts of Lani Guinier. In: New York University Review of Law & Social Change. 21 (1994/1995), pp. 617-632; s. Cañas and McPhail 2004, p. 226ff.
  42. ↑ Jane Rhodes, 'Even My Own Mother Couldn't Recognize Me': Television News and Public Understanding. In: Federal Communication Law Journal. 47 (1994), p. 33 (PDF) ; s. Cañas and McPhail 2004, pp. 233f.
  43. ↑ Green 2004, p. 91.
  44. ↑ Green 2004, pp. 128-131.
  45. ^ Neil A. Lewis: THE GUINIER BATTLE; Clinton Tries to Cut Losses After Abandoning a Choice. In: The New York Times. June 5, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  46. ^ Adam Clymer: Black Caucus Threatens Revolt on Clinton Budget. In: The New York Times. June 10, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  47. ↑ Michael Kelly: Words And Deeds; The Guinier Affair Aggravates Clinton's Credibility Problem. In: The New York Times. June 6, 1993, accessed July 25, 2013 .
  48. ↑ Lani Guinier Home Page. Harvard Law School, accessed August 13, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Guinier, Lani
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guinier, Carol Lani (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer, university professor and civil rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City