U.S. Sen Roger Wicker could have chosen his words more carefully when recently discussing on a Mississippi conservative talk radio program President Joe Biden’s pledge to fill an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court with a Black woman.
Wicker, by criticizing the pledge as a form of “affirmative racial discrimination” and a “quota,” opened himself up to charges of racism — a charge that those who know the Republican senator and his track record know to be untrue.
That’s not to say Wicker is perfect on race. There are few in politics, in this state or most others, who are. But there have been some moments in his political career when, if Wicker were not sensitive to the concerns of African Americans, he would have taken different positions. Most notable was his decision in 2015 to endorse a new state flag for Mississippi, one that would remove the Confederate emblem that was an insulting reminder to Black Mississippians of slavery and racial segregation. He was one of the first Republicans to advocate changing the state flag, getting in front on an issue that would take most of his fellow Republicans several more years to catch up to.
And just about a week after his talk radio controversy, Wicker joined an African American and Democratic senatorial colleague, Raphael Warnock, to condemn the recent bomb threats against historically black colleges and universities and urge the FBI to make its investigation into them a priority.
A cynic would say that Wicker joined in the letter as a way to defuse his own recent racial controversy. Maybe so, maybe not. But Wicker has shown himself to be for years a strong supporter of Mississippi’s historically black colleges and universities, authoring or backing legislation to direct programs and federal dollars their way.
As for “affirmative action,” Biden’s pledge is a form of it. To say otherwise would be to ignore the president’s stated intentions: that is, to further diversify the Supreme Court by guaranteeing that the white man who will be retiring (Stephen Breyer) will be replaced by a Black woman.
Stating the obvious, however, does not make the Democratic president’s commitment wrong. Affirmative action only gets a bad name when it is misrepresented as an effort to give lesser qualified candidates priority over more qualified ones.
The fact is, there are dozens — possibly hundreds — of jurists who have the credentials to serve competently on the high court. At one time, that pool of qualified candidates was dominated by white men. It is no longer. Thus it is justified, when vacancies occur, to try to fashion a court that better reflects that reality not only within the judiciary but society at large.
Republican presidents have done likewise. Both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, although generally critics of affirmative action, practiced it at times with Supreme Court nominations, at least in terms of gender preference. Reagan promised on the campaign trail he would appoint the first woman to the high court and did so in Sandra Day O’Connor. When a woman justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, died in Trump’s final year in office, he promised to replace her with another woman, although one much different ideologically. That brought Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
In both cases, Reagan and Trump crossed off more than half of the federal judges (males) from consideration. We don’t recall any complaining of “reverse discrimination” about that. Wicker himself gushed how Barrett’s appointment would be an inspiration to his daughters and granddaughters.
By the same token, whoever Biden nominates, assuming she is confirmed by the Senate, will be equally inspirational to many — black females, yes, but perhaps white ones as well — who will see themselves in her.
