Dialogues on Racial Justice Series: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall – The Life, The Legend, & The Legacy – In Honor of Black History Month

As the nation looks toward its possible first African-American woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, and as the Supreme Court’s docket includes a growing number of cases implicating social and racial justice, the memory of Justice Thurgood Marshall – the first African-American ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991) – has never loomed larger.   

A towering figure in civil rights and the law long before he became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Marshall argued the momentous Brown v. Board of Education (1954), altering the landscape of U.S. society forever, and was the chief architect of the legal strategy that ended the United States’ official policy of segregation.  His many “firsts” include: Founder and first Director-General of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (1940-1961); first African-American on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1961-1965); and first African-American Solicitor General of the U.S. (1965-1967) – all before he joined the Court, where he once described his judicial philosophy as “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”  

Celebrate Black History Month 2022 with the FBA by joining some of Justice Marshall’s former law clerks (“knuckleheads,” he called them) as they regale us with “war stories” from their time in the Justice’s Chambers and some of the many quips, quotes, and anecdotes that the colorful, charming, and witty larger-than-life Justice – a famed storyteller, with a booming laugh – shared with them. 

An audience Q&A period will follow the law clerks’ presentations. 

Registration is Closed

Official White House Announcement – On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Speakers

Robert N. Weiner
Law Clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1978-1979
Senior Counsel, Arnold & Porter LLP
Senior Legal Consultant, Campaign Legal Center

Rob Weiner has significant experience as a trial lawyer, appellate advocate, and legal strategist in complex litigation. He is skilled in developing creative legal approaches to bring cases to a quick, cheap and successful resolution. Mr. Weiner’s long experience representing business and sovereign clients in litigation, and his three tours of duty as a government lawyer, have honed his ability to  deal with the regulatory, tactical, and constitutional issues arising when the federal government is, or may become, a party in litigation. From 2010-2012, Mr. Weiner was Associate Deputy Attorney General at the US Department of Justice, where his principal responsibility was to oversee the defense of the Affordable Care Act. He also handled sensitive negotiations with a foreign government involving bank secrecy, and dealt with or headed-off difficult issues across the range of the Department’s matters. Mr. Weiner also has served as Senior Counsel in the White House Counsel’s Office, and as an Associate Independent Counsel. He began his career as a law clerk for The Honorable Henry J. Friendly and for Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Professor Sheryll Cashin
Law Clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1990-1991
Georgetown University Law Center

Sheryll Cashin is an author and the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at Georgetown University. Currently she teaches Constitutional Law, Race and American Law, and a writing seminar about American segregation, education and opportunity.

Her new book — White Space, Black ‘Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality (forthcoming, Beacon 2021) — is about the role of residential segregation in producing racial inequality. Her book, Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy (Beacon, 2017), explores the history and future of interracial intimacy, how white supremacy was constructed and how “culturally dexterous” allies undermine it. Her book, Place Not Race (Beacon, 2014), recommended radical reforms of selective college admissions in order to promote robust diversity; it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction in 2015. Her book, The Failures of Integration (PublicAffairs, 2004) explored the persistence and consequences of race and class segregation. It was an Editors’ Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a three-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction (2005, 2009, and 2018). She has published widely in academic journals and written commentaries for Politico Magazine, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Salon, The Root, and other media.

Professor Cashin serves as board member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. She is former Vice Chair of the board of Building One America, a network of local, multiracial coalitions that promote social inclusion, racial justice and sustainable economic opportunity, especially in distressed places. She served for a decade on the trustee boards of Vanderbilt University, The Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and the National Portrait Gallery. She worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, particularly concerning community development in inner-city neighborhoods.

Cashin is frequently asked to speak to academic and policy audiences as well as at book events for people who engage with her as an author. She has delivered keynote or endowed lectures at twenty universities. For her two decades of writing and advocacy for residential and school integration, the Fair Housing Justice Center honored her with the 2017 Acting for Justice Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil Rights.

Professor Cashin was law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. As a Marshall Scholar, she received a masters in English Law with honors from Oxford University and received a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review. Cashin was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. She lives in Washington with her husband and twin boys.

Welcome Remarks provided by
Anh Le Kremer, National President, Federal Bar Association
Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel at Nystrom & Associates, Ltd.

Registration

Registration is Closed

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• FBA Member: $0
• Nonmember: $75

Registration for this event will close February 28 at 9 AM ET. 

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