Thread by @mjs_DC

In 1966, LBJ nominated the first Black woman to the federal judiciary. Constance Baker Motley was a brilliant litigator who had argued 12 Supreme Court cases and represented Black defendants in the Jim Crow South.

But critics said she wasn’t qualified. slate.com/news-and-polit…

The white men who ran the American Bar Association were hesitant to deem Motley “qualified” because she lacked “experience”—a flagrantly false claim.

In truth, they just assumed that a Black woman couldn’t possibly be as qualified as more traditional (white male) nominees.

Racist senators insisted that Motley—who helped Thurgood Marshall litigate Brown v. Board of Education—was, in modern parlance, a mediocre affirmative action pick.

Meanwhile, no one ever questioned whether white men ever got nominated because they were, you know, white men.

Motley ultimately got confirmed, but the “affirmative action nominee” line got trotted out as Jimmy Carter strived to put more women of color on the bench. Time and again, critics declared that he was elevating identity over merit—even though his nominees were wildly qualified.

Carter, however, understood that white men had locked women of color out the top tiers of the legal profession since … forever. He knew he had to seek out and raise up nontraditional nominees, because the old guard would always deem them underqualified. slate.com/news-and-polit…

This suspicion still dogs women of color nominated to the bench. 56 years after Constance Baker Motley’s confirmation, they are still dismissed as underqualified affirmative action picks—no matter their credentials.

And that, my friends, is called racism.
slate.com/news-and-polit…

PS Read @TBrownNagin's fantastic biography of Constance Baker Motley!
amazon.com/dp/1524747181/…