African-Americans and the Supreme Court

A recent article examines the diversity of advocates who appear before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Associated Press just published an article entitled, “In entire court term, justices see 1 black lawyer” which addresses the scarcity of African-Americans who appear before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The article began, “In roughly 75 hours of arguments at the Supreme Court since October, only one African-American lawyer appeared before the justices, and for just over 11 minutes.” That advocate this year Debo Adegbile. In recent history one of the primary African-American women to argue before the court has been Leondra Kruger who is a litigator in the office of the U.S. Solicitor General. The number of cases she has argued before the Supreme Court has led some to dub her one of the top female advocates before the court.

The article zeroes in on the need for diversity amongst the advocates who appear before the court. It strikes some that with the number of women, three, and the number of people of color, two, means that the representative diversity amongst the justices hearing arguments on the court, is much higher than the representative diversity of the advocates who argue before the court.

Here’s a few quick facts on African-Americans and the court

In 1865 John S. Rock became the first African-American admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court

In 1965 Thurgood Marshall was appointed the first African-American U.S. Solicitor General

In 1967 Thurgood Marshall is appointed the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice

More: From Slavery to the Supreme Court Online Exhibit via The Just The Beginning Foundation