Lawyer Regrets Backing Kennedy
A prominent civil rights lawyer says he feels embarrassed and betrayed by his pre-confirmation endorsement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in light of Kennedy’s recent rulings in civil rights cases.
“I wish I could take back that endorsement,” Nathaniel Colley Sr., former longtime regional counsel for the NAACP, said in an interview published Monday in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper.
Colley, a longtime acquaintance and teaching colleague of Kennedy’s, testified for the Supreme Court nominee before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987 and helped persuade the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups not to oppose Kennedy.
Colley said he was dismayed that Kennedy has joined rulings that have made it harder for minorities to challenge employment practices and have allowed whites to upset minority hiring agreements, and was the author of a decision that restricted the ability to sue for on-the-job racial harassment.
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