NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE URGES CONFIRMATION OF SUPREME COURT NOMINEE ELENA KAGAN
NEW YORK (June 28, 2010) – National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said a review of Elena Kagan’s work in public and private practice and academia has led the organization to support her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
 
“We are confident in her commitment to justice,” Morial said. “While she hasn’t issued judicial opinions addressing civil rights or written extensively on the subject, her intellect and experience indicate a thoughtful approach and a concern for consensus-building that would serve the Court well.”
 
Morial said the League paid particular attention to Kagan’s involvement in a racial justice initiative under the Clinton Administration one-year known as: One America in the 21st Century: The President’s Initiative on Race.
 
“Kagan’s work on the initiative was significant not only because of the proposals that were developed and implemented, but because also because of her efforts to include a diverse variety of viewpoints and her role in forging working relationships among different constituencies,” Morial said.
 
While Morial noted the questions that have been raised regarding hiring of minorities as tenured faculty while Kagan was dean of Harvard Law School, he emphasized that her record on the diversity of the student body, where she arguably wielded more influence over the process, was encouraging.  Further, he pointed to Ms. Kagan’s own endorsement of a rigorous judicial confirmations process as an opportunity to better understand her thinking on issues of diversity, race and civil rights. 
 
“I am confident that the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will use these hearings to provide Ms. Kagan with a chance to settle some of these questions and remove any doubt about her ability to be a fair and just arbiter of the law.”