Word: backgrounder
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Chanequa N. Campbell ’09—one of two Harvard students linked to last Monday’s shooting in Kirkland House—denied any involvement with the incident Tuesday and accused Harvard administrators of unjustly barring her from graduating next month because of her background. Campbell—who lived in the Kirkland Annex where the shooting took place—received two letters last Friday from Harvard administrators informing her that she must leave campus and prohibiting her from attending all graduation activities, according to her lawyer, Jeffrey T. Karp. Campbell has denied...
...hooked on Perry Mason and took just 15 minutes to end the 1995 baseball strike is President Obama's choice to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor, who would be the first Latino on the high court, emerged from a more hardscrabble background than have most jurists who reach the top rungs of America's legal system. Sotomayor, 54, was raised by Puerto Rican parents in a South Bronx housing project a few miles from the old Yankee Stadium. Her father, a tool-and-die maker who died when Sotomayor...
...unless Administration background checkers failed to find what they needed to know about Sotomayor's history, those spoiling for a battle are not going to get one. Most Republicans will squelch their first instinct to go to the mattresses and instead follow the President's pathway: avoid a fight...
...course, the judicial-confirmation process can take surprising turns, as Senators delve more deeply into the background of a nominee. (Perhaps you've heard of Clarence Thomas?) Which is why Senate Republicans want to give this one a lot of time. "We will thoroughly examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law evenhandedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences," Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that could be read as cautious or ominous. "Our Democratic colleagues have often remarked that...
...speech at the Berkeley campus of the University of California, Sotomayor aired the view that a judge's gender and ethnic background inevitably affect his or her decision-making, and probably should. She said then, "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement ... I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male...