Lani Guinier (born 1950) is arguably one of the foremost American civil rights scholars in the United States. The first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Guinier's work spans a range of topics, including professional responsibilities of public lawyers, the relationship between democracy and the law, the role of race and gender in the political process, equity in college admissions, and affirmative action. 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... A Kenyan man This article is about the different definitions of the term black people. For other terms related to black people, see Black people (terminology). ... Tenure commonly refers to academic tenure systems, in which professors (at the university level)—and in some jurisdictions schoolteachers (at primary or secondary school levels)—are granted the right not to be fired without cause after an initial probationary period. ... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Harvard Law School (HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ... College admissions or university admission is the process through which students enter post-secondary education at universities and colleges. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Early life

Guinier is the daughter of a Jewish mother, Eugenia Paprin, and the Jamaican-born scholar Ewart Guinier, who also served as Harvard professor (and chair) of the Afro-American Studies Department in 1969. For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... Year 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ...

Guinier wrote in 1994 that she has "always" wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. She tells an early story of being an eight-year-old member of her Brownie troop when they held a hatmaking contest. The "winner" was a girl whose mother was a milliner, a professional hatmaker, who made her daughter's entry in full view of all the participants. The rules were not fair, the young Guinier concluded, and because she was too young to be able to change them, she promptly resigned. Since then, she wrote, her life has been motivated by "a deep-seated commitment to democratic fair play--to playing by the rules as long as the rules are fair. When the rules seem unfair, I have worked to change them, not subvert them." A milliner is a person who designs, makes, or sells womens hats. ...

Guinier grew up and graduated from Radcliffe College and Yale Law School. She worked as a civil rights attorney for more than 10 years including seven years as Assistant Counsel and head of the Voting Rights project for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She served four years as special assistant to then Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days in the Civil Rights Division of the Carter Administration. Radcliffe College is the historical name of a womens educational institution closely associated with Harvard University. ... The Sterling Law Building Sculptural ornamentation on the Sterling Law Building Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ... The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. ... Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an Assistant Attorney General. ... Drew Saunders Days III Drew Saunders Days III, U.S. lawyer, He served as United States Solicitor General from 1993 to 1996. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... Order: 39th President Term of Office: January 20, 1977–January 20, 1981 Preceded by: Gerald Ford Succeeded by: Ronald Reagan Date of birth: October 1, 1924 Place of birth: Plains, Georgia Date of death: Place of death: First Lady: Rosalynn Carter Political party: Democratic Vice President: Walter Mondale James...

Teaching

Guinier was Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for 10 years, before being hired by Harvard Law School in 1998. Silverman Hall of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania Law School is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. ... Harvard Law School (HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

She regularly lectures at top law schools and universities nationwide including Yale, Stanford, New York University (NYU), UT Austin, Dartmouth, Berkeley, UCLA, Rice, University of Chicago, and over 100 others. YALE (Yet Another Learning Environment) is an environment for machine learning experiments and data mining. ... Stanford may refer: Stanford University Places: Stanford, Kentucky Stanford, California, home of Stanford University Stanford Shopping Center Stanford, New York, town in Dutchess County. ... New York University (NYU) is a major research university in New York City. ... University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (full official name), often UT or Texas for short, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System, the largest public university system in Texas, established in 1883. ... Dartmouth College is a private academic institution in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ... Binomial name Ucla xenogrammus Holleman, 1993 The largemouth triplefin, Ucla xenogrammus, is a fish of the family Tripterygiidae and only member of the genus Ucla, found in the Pacific Ocean from Viet Nam, the Philippines, Palau and the Caroline Islands to Papua New Guinea, Australia (including Christmas Island), and the... Lovett Hall William Marsh Rice University, commonly called Rice University and opened in 1912 as The William Marsh Rice Institute for the Advancement of Letters, Science and Art, is a private, comprehensive research university located in Houston, Texas near the Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ...

Writing

Guinier has written six books, 29 law review and journal articles, and at least 25 newspaper editorials.

Guinier's publications include many law review articles and op-ed pieces, as well as her books The Miner's Canary: Rethinking Race and Power (2002), Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice (1998), The Tyranny of the Majority (1994), and Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law Schools and Institutional Change, 1995). A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ...

Nomination for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights

Guinier is probably most well-known as President Clinton's nomination for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in late 1993. After an intense media campaign by various conservative critics labeled Guinier 'anti-Constitutional' and 'a quota queen,' President Clinton withdrew her nomination, saying he was unfamiliar with her writing. The media blitz was notable for focusing on purported representations of Guinier's academic law review articles; her critics chose select excerpts from her academic work without context, reducing complex legal arguments (see below) to simplistic phrases (CJR 32:3, 36). Guinier was not allowed to defend herself in the media (NYT 6/4/93 p.A1), and most notably, the Clinton administration did not defend the nomination in the media before withdrawing it. William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... In most common law jurisdictions, the Attorney General is the main legal adviser to the government, and in some jurisdictions may in addition have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

Guinier herself described the aborted process as "censorship imposed against me [that] points to a denial of serious public debate or discussion about racial fairness and justice in a true democracy" (1994:19).

A critical component of the Guinier nomination controversy was the issue of race. From an early article by libertarian attorney Clint Bolick in the Wall Street Journal headlined "Clinton's Quota Queens," and a Newsweek cover story titled "Crowning a 'Quota Queen'?", Guinier's name became linked to unpopular media images of quotas, affirmative action, and "welfare queens." Ironically, in her work, Guinier had explicitly rejected quotas in voting rights cases, and substantially criticized affirmative action. The unpopular racial images lingered, however, as did a focus on her work for "black power" rather than basic civil rights for all. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Clint Bolick is the President and General Counsel of the Alliance for School Choice, a national nonprofit educational policy group advocating school choice programs across the country. ...

Guinier argues that in trying to productively and openly discuss race and racism, she was branded "race obssessed" and "antidemocratic." Much of her work is now dedicated to broaching issues of race and racism in public forums and discussions, such as the RaceTalks Initiatives, in the belief that more public dialogue, not less, is necessary. Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling Hate speech · Hate crime Lynching · Gay bashing Genocide · Holocaust Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing Pogrom · Race war Religious persecution Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism White/Black supremacy Hate groups · Kahanism Anti-discriminatory Abolitionism Womens/Universal suffrage Civil rights · Gay rights Childrens rights · Youth rights Policies Discriminatory...

Civil rights theories and experience

Guinier's own ideas were finally aired in part with her 1994 publication, The Tyranny of the Majority in which she laid out her lifelong and "deep-seated commitment to democratic fair play—to playing by the rules as long as the rules are fair...." She states: "To me, fair play means that the rules encourage everyone to play. They should reward those who win, but they must be acceptable to those who lose. The central theme of my academic writing is that not all rules lead to elemental fair play. Some even commonplace rules work against it." (1994:1)

In the book, she explains that much of her work is based on the writings of James Madison and other founding fathers, particularly Madison's warning about the tyranny of the majority that "'If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.'" When power remains in the same hands, she cites Madison, "'whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny'" (1994:3-4). A majority group—any majority group—she argues, can become indifferent to the needs and concerns of minority groups. A vibrant democracy, she concludes, doesn't settle for a "winner-take-all" mentality, but needs "a positive-sum solution ... an integrated body politic in which all perspectives are represented and in which all people work together to find common ground" (1994: 5). James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836), an American politician and fourth President of the United States of America (1809–1817), was one of the most influential Founders of the United States. ... Majoritarianism (often also called majority rule) is a political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a majority (sometimes categorized by religion, language or some other identifying factor) of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the...

In this work and others, Guinier suggests various solutions that will ensure that minority groups have a reasonable chance of representation. She makes clear that she is talking not only about racial minorities, but any numerical minority group, such as fundamentalist Christians, the Amish, or in the Alabama case, Republicans; she also makes clear that she does not advocate any single procedural rule, but rather that all alternatives be considered in the context of litigation "after the court finds a legal violation" (1994:14).

Some of the solutions she considers are:

• cumulative voting, a system in which each voter has "the same number of votes as there are seats or options to vote for, and they can then distribute their votes in any combination to reflect their preferences"--this system is commonly used on corporate boards in thirty states, as well as by school boards, and county commissions. In the case of Chilton County, Alabama (1988), cumulative voting gave a previously all-white-Democrat county commission its first black member, first three white Republican members, and first woman member.
• Multi-member "superdistricts" is another strategy which "modifies winner-take-all majority rule to require that something more than a bare majority of voters must approve or concur before action is taken." The Reagan administration approved the use of supermajority voting in Mobile, Alabama, where "the special five-out-of-seven" threshold remains today.

These strategies were and are probably the most controversial elements of Guinier's work since they demand that we reconsider the ultimate fairness of majority rule. She points out that only five Western democracies (including Britain) still use the 'winner-take-all' system, while Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, all use alternative democratic strategies. A points method ballot design like this one is the most common for governmental elections using cumulative voting. ... Famous people with the family name Reagan include: Ronald Reagan, 40th President of The United States Nancy Reagan, the wife of Ronald Reagan and influential First Lady Ron Reagan, President Reagans son and liberal journalist Michael Reagan, President Reagans son and conservative talk show host John Henninger Reagan...

Revising affirmative action

Since 2001, Guinier has been working on issues of fairness in higher education, coining the term "confirmative action" to reconceptualize issues of diversity, fairness, and affirmative action. The process of confirmative action, she says, "ties diversity to the admissions criteria for all students, whatever their race, gender, or ethnic background—including people of color, working-class whites, and even children of privilege."

Because public and private institutions of higher learning are all to some extent publicly-funded (i.e. federal students loans and research grants), Guinier argues that the nation has a vested interest in seeing that all students have access to higher education, and that these graduates "contribute as leaders in our democratic polity." By linking diversity to merit, Guinier "confirms the public character and democratic missions of higher-education institutions. Diversity becomes relevant not only to the college's admissions process but also to its students' educational experiences and to what its graduates actually contribute to American society. (ChronHigherEd 12/14/01).

Civil rights projects

She is also involved in multiple civil rights projects, including The Miners Canary and The Racetalks Initiative.

Honors

She has been honored with various awards, including the Champion of Democracy Award from the National Women's Political Caucus; the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession; and the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association of Affirmative Action. The National Womens Political Caucus was formed in 1971(by Betty Friedan) with a goal of increasing the number of women involved in politics, including running for office and serving as delegates to national conventions. ... Margaret Brent, (1601-1671), was the first North American feminist. ... American Bar Associations Washington, DC office The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. ... Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American seamstress and civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress dubbed the Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement. Parks is famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955 to obey bus driver James Blake... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

She has received 10 honorary degrees from schools including Smith College, Spelman College, Swarthmore College, and the University of the District of Columbia. She has also been recognized for excellence in teaching by the 1994 Harvey Levin Teaching Award at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the 2002 Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence from Harvard Law School. Smith College, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, is the largest womens college in the United States []. Smith admits only female undergraduates, but admits both men and women as graduate students. ... Spelman College is a four-year liberal arts womens college in Atlanta, Georgia. ... Swarthmore College is a private liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1450 students. ... The University of the District of Columbia (also known as UDC) is a public university located in Washington, DC. The university was formed in 1977 through the amalgamation of the Federal City College and Washington Technical Institute - which had both been established in 1966 as the result of a study... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... Harvey Robert Levin is a producer, lawyer, legal analyst, and investigative reporter. ... Silverman Hall of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania Law School is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... // Freund (German for friend) refers to: This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it. ... Harvard Law School (HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. ...

Quotes

• "My nomination became an unfortunate metaphor for the state of race relations in America. My nomination suggested that as a country, we are in a state of denial about issues of race and racism. The censorship imposed against me points to a denial of serious public debate or discussion about racial fairness and justice in a true democracy. For many politicians and policymakers, the remedy for racism is simply to stop talking about race" (1994:19).

• "Gifted with second sight, we can share our stories ... build coalitions, develop a voice. ... We shall speak until all the people gain a voice." (1994)

• "If we can't talk about race, then when we talk about crime, we're really talking about other things, and it means that we're not being honest in acknowledging what the problem is."

• "For those at the bottom, a system that gives everyone an equal chance of having their political preferences [by which she means political representatives] physically represented is inadequate. A fair system of political representation would ensure that disadvantaged and stigmatized minority groups also provide mechanisms to have a fair chance to have their policy preferences satisfied."

• "Single member districts improve the prospects of minority representation only to the extent that there is substantial residential segregation at the appropriate geographic scale. Thus, for Latinos who live in barrios that are dispersed throughout a jurisdiction, districting does not capture either their real or potential power."

• "When asked, as I frequently am, 'Why do you call yourself black?' I say, I am a black woman whose Jewish mother taught me about the Holocaust and about slavery. I am a black woman who grew up 'black' because that was how others saw me and because it was black people who embraced my mother when she married my father in 1945. I am a black woman who grew up celebrating both Passover and Easter, and who still occasionally sprinkles Yiddish words in my speech." (1998: 67)

To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination... Concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust The Holocaust was Nazi Germanys systematic genocide (ethnic cleansing) of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups during World War II. Early elements include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program established by Hitler that killed some 200,000 people. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Passover (Hebrew: פסח; transliterated as Pesach or Pesah), also called ×—×’ המצות (Chag HaMatzot - Festival of Matzot) is a Jewish holiday which is celebrated in the northern spring. ... This article is about the Christian festival. ... Yiddish (ייִדיש, Jiddisch) is a Germanic language spoken by about four million Jews throughout the world. ...

References

• Clinton Bolick, "Clinton's Quota Queens," Wall Street Journal (op-ed), April 30, 1993
• “Clinton faces liberal backlash as he drops civil rights radical,” The Times (London, England), June 4, 1993, 14
• “Clinton ready to abandon civil rights radical; Lani Guinier.” The Times (London, England), June 3, 1993, 13
• Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority (Free Press: 1994)
• Lani Guinier, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice (Simon and Schuster: 1998).
• Laurel Leff, "From legal scholar to quota queen: what happens when politics pulls the press into the groves of academe," Columbia Journalism Review 32:3 (Sept-Oct 1993), 36

NY Times, 6/4/93 p.A1

• "Specter of Guinier Haunts Clinton’s Handling of Civil Rights Pick," The Fresno Bee, (Fresno, CA), December 2, 1997, B5

External links

• Guinier's publications at the Harvard site Bibliography
• Substantial list of Guinier's publications with online links to various articles
• The Miner's Canary project
• The Racetalks Initiative
• Interview with Lani Guinier in Dollars & Sense magazine