Bakari Kitwana speaks with Harvard Law Professor Ronald Sullivan about the Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan. Critics of the Obama Administration have raised questions about Solicitor General Kagan’s minority hiring record when she was Dean of Harvard Law. Pointing to Kagan’s record on race and social justice, including her decision to refuse the oldest endowed chair at Harvard Law because of its connection to the Atlantic Slave Trade, Sullivan responds.
Specifically, he asserts that many of the criticisms leveled against Kagan are unfounded and taken out of context. While he concedes there are equally qualified Black women who were on Obama’s short list and who could have been nominated, he feels we should not “demean Kagan.”
Professor Ronald Sullivan is the Director of Harvard Criminal Justice Institute and Jamestown Project Fellow. As an attorney, he’s represented clients in local and federal courts across the US, including one of the Jena Six defendants. A Clinical Law Professor at Harvard, he was recruited four years ago by Elena Kagan to join the faculty at Harvard Law.
Bakari Kitwana is CEO of Rap Sessions, Editor at Large of Newsone.com and author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era. (Third World Press, 2010)
LISTEN HERE:
RELATED:
RAP SESSIONS: Conrad Tillard On Charlie Rangel’s Fight For Congressional Seat
EVENT: Rap Sessions Kicks Off 5th Annual Tour
