Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 November 2000 — Page 4

PAGE A4

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2000

2000

Saturday Morning November 25,2000 IUPUI Stadium • 10 K Run *5 K Walk •Kiddie Romp • 5 K Family Fitness Walk For more information or to register on-line go to www.citizensgas.com or call Tuxedo Brothers at (317) 328-1632 Race for Heat benefits Marion County families Ml 1 ' * 'r*. . . rMXv.V*-. ^ I |PP

» » I

I » i

Michael Colyar

Lavell Crawford

WTLC presents NIP HOP COMEDY SHOP Friday Nov. 24 7:30 & 11pm Murat Theatre Tickets available at the Murat box office and all TicketMasters outlets

George Willborn

Studio 54 Party & Pair Shew

Wed Nov. 22 8pm Until... Murat Egyptian Ballroom

Sponsored in part by:

•Parrot bay*

Tickets available at WTLC, Murat Box Office, Players Modern Clothing, Sophisticuts and all TicketMasters Outlets

^lex Budtyoi? u/itl? Special Cue$t /T\anog /I\eadovi;$

Wed Nov. 22 7:30 & 11pm Club Mecca

Tickets available at WTLC, Club Mecca and all TicketMasters Outlets

COURT Continued from A1 “The future of the Supreme Court is the most important issue, in the most important national election since 1932,” argues Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way. “Ifoneortwomore right wing Supreme Court justices get on the court, we will have the curtailment of abortion as well as many fundamental civil rights and liberties that we’ve taken for granted for decades. Too many times you hear Roe v. Wade mentioned, but what a lot of people don’t know is there would be more than 100 precedents that would be affected.” During the first televised presidential debate. Bush stated: “The voters will know I’ll put competent judges on the bench, people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy. I don’t believe in liberal, activist judges. 1 believe in strict ‘constructionists,’ and those are the kind of judges I will appoint.” The “constructionist” judicial view takes a literal, narrow reading of the U.S. Constitution and allowed the court to establish the “separate but equal” doctrine in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. The models in whom Bush has expressed inspiration are Supreme Court right-wingers, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the two most conservative judges on the current court. Gore has pointed to former activist judges William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall as his appointment benchmarks. Both presidential candidates are seeking to nominate the first Hispanic justice to the Supreme Court. In its last term, 20 of 73 cases were decided by 5-4 margins with the core majority bloc consisting of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor being the swing vote. The group has helped strike down racial preferences in Black-majority congressional districts and federal contracting. Liberal wing leader John

Paul Stevens, O’Connor and Rehnquist are the oldest members of the court. “The way our court interprets our founding charter of the Constitution for the next several decades will be determined by who is on that court,” says Joe Andrew, a Gore spokesman. “The vice president and the Democratic Party does not believe in a litmus test for judicial appointees. “Clearly A1 Gore will look for people who value inclusion at- all levels because they recognize the excellence and legitimacy of all our public institutions really demand that inclusion as well,” continued Andrew. “That’s the Democratic tradition that A1 Gore is a part of, where the Republican tradition is actually to block African-American appointees to the federal bench. If you are African American, this Republican Senate makes it twice as likely that you will not be confirmed. For those who are confirmed, it takes them twice as long as it does if you are white and you’re male. They’ll have to explain that. George W. Bush claims that he’s not going to know whether his appointees support affirmative action or a woman’s right to choose. That’s absurd on its face. The only way that would be happening is if you were appointing people that had no record at all and by definition should not be on the Supreme Court or federal bench.” Last June, the People for the American Way Foundation released a report after six months of research, entitled, "Courting Disaster: How a Scalia-Thomas Supreme Court Would Endanger Our Rights and Freedoms.” It asks the question, “If these opinions were shared by a majority of the court, how would that change the outcome of the court’s decisions?” For example, Thomas argued in Missouri v. Jenkips (1995) that the Supreme Court made a mistake in considering the psychological and social impact of segregation on Black children. And he goes on to ignore the significant role that housing discrimination and other types of illegal bias play in continuing public school education. , ■ a.

Consistently, Scalia has argued against affirmative action and according to “Courting Disaster,” a Scalia-Thomas majority would negate some of the Supreme Court’s most important voting rights cases. I< In Holder v. Hall (1994), Scalia and Thomas took a position so extreme that justices Harry Blackmun, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Ginsburg argued that it would have meant “overturning or reconsidering” 28 previous rulings based on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibiting racial discrimination in all aspects of voting. The current session began on Oct. 2 and the justices accepted 47 cases for review, with the possibility of 30 more, among the selected is Hunt v. Cromartie, which represents the fourth time the current court has examined Black-major-ity congressional districts. Other cases which could affect minorities in particular include: City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, which is an appeal by Indianapolis of a federal appeals court’s halting of its random roadblocks; Ferguson v. Charleston, a South Carolina case involving a hospital’s right to work with the law enforcement In testing pregnant women’s urine fdr cocaine and Kyllo v. U.S. concerning the constitutionality of Oregon police using a thermal imaging device to detect high heat levels in private homes in order to catch marijuana growers. Possibly, the court will hear a case involvin’g race-based admissions at the University of Michigan. The next president could appoint more than 25 percent of the 834 district court and federal appeals judgeships. Increasingly, the 13 appeals courts have been exef* cising greater power as the Supreme Court hears fewer cases. ‘ The Clinton-Gore administration has overseen more minority appointments to the federal bench than all the previous ones combined. In Texas, most of George W. Bush’s judicial appointments have been moderate conservatives such as Republican Judge Dwight Jefferson, a Black civil judge in the state’s 215th judicial district. ' f * nr. . V : , . ■ • " • ' ",

Sf* %K;'

Master

Scholars Incorporated

Proudly Presents The Ameritech Master Scholars 2000-2001 Speaker Series

% MU

Tina Alli n International Fine Art Sculptor dedicated to preserving the African-American contribution to American life in bronze. October 25, 2000, 7:00 P.M. Madame Walker Theatre Center 617 Indiana Avenue

Dr. Walter I. Williams Noted economist and author of America A Monority Viewpoint: The State Against Blacks. November 28, 2000, 7:00 PM. Madame Walker Theatre Center 617 Indiana Avenue

Dr. Jiilianne Malveaux Economist, consultant, writer and award winning columnist for USA Today, San Francisco Sun Reporter and Black Issues in Higher Education January 17, 2001,7:00 PM. Madame Walker Theatre Center 617 Indiana Avenue

Dr. Alvin Poussaint Author, psychiatrist, educator, script consultant for The Cosby Show and a respected social critic. February 20, 2001, 7:00 PM. Madame Walker Theatre Center 617 Indiana Avenue

Iff.l

Master Scholars Humanitarian Award Dinner Honoring Tams Smiley April 19,2001,7:30 P.M. Madame Walker Theatre Center *617 Indiana Avenue Tickets $100 per person. (ffieritech.

Tickets are available through TicketMaster, Madame Walker Theatre Center, and at X-Presskm Bookstore and Gallery at 5912 N. College Avenue. For more information or group sales call (317) 767-5522.

( i