Disir
Platinum Member
- Sep 30, 2011
- 28,003
- 9,607
- 910
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Elena Kagan recalled the moment 30 years ago when her boss looked at her “as though I must have lost my mind.”
The boss was Justice Thurgood Marshall and the setting was his Supreme Court office, where Kagan was spending a year as a law clerk after graduating from Harvard Law School.
Kagan had just delivered what she deemed a clear and simple explanation for why Marshall should side against a North Dakota girl who lived 16 miles from her school and whose family could not afford the bus service to get her there. The school district wouldn’t waive the fee.
The legal giant who argued for the end of segregated schools and the first African-American on the court was not going to cast a vote against a poor school girl.
The story, recounted Tuesday evening in the courtroom where Marshall worked for 24 years, was part of a warm recollection by three judges and a Harvard law professor of their time spent as Supreme Court law clerks for Marshall, whose first term on the court was 50 years ago. Marshall’s widow, Cecilia, and sons Thurgood and John were in the audience.
Sarita Kadrmas, the girl who sued, was white, but that was of no consequence in Marshall’s thinking, Kagan said.
“His basic idea of what he was there to do was ... to ensure that people like Sarita Kadrmas got to school every morning,” Kagan said.
SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Kagan recalls clerking for Marshall
Not as lengthy as I would have preferred the article but it's ok.
The boss was Justice Thurgood Marshall and the setting was his Supreme Court office, where Kagan was spending a year as a law clerk after graduating from Harvard Law School.
Kagan had just delivered what she deemed a clear and simple explanation for why Marshall should side against a North Dakota girl who lived 16 miles from her school and whose family could not afford the bus service to get her there. The school district wouldn’t waive the fee.
The legal giant who argued for the end of segregated schools and the first African-American on the court was not going to cast a vote against a poor school girl.
The story, recounted Tuesday evening in the courtroom where Marshall worked for 24 years, was part of a warm recollection by three judges and a Harvard law professor of their time spent as Supreme Court law clerks for Marshall, whose first term on the court was 50 years ago. Marshall’s widow, Cecilia, and sons Thurgood and John were in the audience.
Sarita Kadrmas, the girl who sued, was white, but that was of no consequence in Marshall’s thinking, Kagan said.
“His basic idea of what he was there to do was ... to ensure that people like Sarita Kadrmas got to school every morning,” Kagan said.
SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Kagan recalls clerking for Marshall
Not as lengthy as I would have preferred the article but it's ok.
