AUDACIOUSLY PRESUMPTUOUS
As I was reading a reference to the famous Bakke case in BLACK ROBES, WHITE JUSTICE by Judge Bruce Wright (1993), I was reminded of my own personal, affirmative action experience.
In February 1974, me and my good friend, Ron Hayes, went to the United States Supreme Court to attend an oral argument in the famous law school affirmative action case of DeFunis v. Odegaard. DeFunis is an earlier, no less notorious, predecessor of Bakke, which involved admission the University of Washington School of Law. Bakke involved the medical school admissions.
Ron and I were good friends from Howard University, who had gone to different Washington DC law schools, thereafter. He went to Georgetown Law and I went to Howard Law. Both of us were second semester first year law students. We were roommates, as well, living in a Bladensburg, Maryland, apartment. With all of the hubbub about the importance of this case in the press and in our law schools, one evening we resolved to attend oral arguments in the DeFunis case the next day. We knew we that had to arrive early to get in line for the 9:00 a.m., seating given the limited seating options in the Court.
"Early" to us meant 7:00 a.m.
When we arrived around 6:30 a.m., there was already a very long line of students stretching around the block. We gasped! Oh my! What to do, now? Carefully perusing the line, we noted its monochromatic nature. There were no blacks in that long line.
But, first things first. We parked. Then, we walked. And walked. And we walked briskly that dark, cold February morning. We kept on walking until we reached the line, looking for some pocket of sympathy, as we passed. Finding none, we kept on walking up the marble steps. The line tightened intuitively as we passed. No sympathy. So we walked inside the portico of the Court, right up to its big brass door. Then, when we got to the head of the line at the door of the high court itself, we simply and nonviolently cut the line! There we were standing in the very front of everyone else!
What effrontery! what gall! "What kind of brazen affirmative action stunt could this possibly be?" the ensuing hushed silence seemed to inquire!
A smoldering, smattering of murmurings behind us began to grow into vigorous remonstrance. Soon, it was punctuated by the barbed pronouncement, "Hey, you guys can't cut in front of us! We were here first."
We did not respond nor turn around. Whereupon we were displaced at the front by those whom we had displaced, until we were pushed back about 20 or so persons from the front, where we came to rest. Throughout, we had never argued nor looked back.
We just stood in line, affirmatively, with our all-white law school colleagues from the East Coast. At the appointed time, we were ushered into a certain section of seats that allowed us to watch the entire arguments of counsel, some 1.5 hours, including the Court's processional and recessional.
Meanwhile, those more patient and polite members of the public who had stood in line much longer than we, were shunted in and out of the Court after 3 minutes of viewing in order to accommodate the massive crowds that were still waiting.
If there is a moral to this story it is this: "Victory most often goes to the audaciously presumptuous." To this aphorism, I bear witness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeFunis_v._Odegaard
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
AUDACIOUSLY PRESUMPTUOUS
AUDACIOUSLY PRESUMPTUOUS
As I was reading a reference to the famous Bakke case in BLACK ROBES, WHITE JUSTICE by Judge Bruce Wright (1993), I was reminded of my own personal, affirmative action experience.
In February 1974, me and my good friend, Ron Hayes, went to the United States Supreme Court to attend an oral argument in the famous law school affirmative action case of DeFunis v. Odegaard. DeFunis is an earlier, no less notorious, predecessor of Bakke, which involved admission the University of Washington School of Law. Bakke involved the medical school admissions.
Ron and I were good friends from Howard University, who had gone to different Washington DC law schools, thereafter. He went to Georgetown Law and I went to Howard Law. Both of us were second semester first year law students. We were roommates, as well, living in a Bladensburg, Maryland, apartment. With all of the hubbub about the importance of this case in the press and in our law schools, one evening we resolved to attend oral arguments in the DeFunis case the next day. We knew we that had to arrive early to get in line for the 9:00 a.m., seating given the limited seating options in the Court.
"Early" to us meant 7:00 a.m.
When we arrived around 6:30 a.m., there was already a very long line of students stretching around the block. We gasped! Oh my! What to do, now? Carefully perusing the line, we noted its monochromatic nature. There were no blacks in that long line.
But, first things first. We parked. Then, we walked. And walked. And we walked briskly that dark, cold February morning. We kept on walking until we reached the line, looking for some pocket of sympathy, as we passed. Finding none, we kept on walking up the marble steps. The line tightened intuitively as we passed. No sympathy. So we walked inside the portico of the Court, right up to its big brass door. Then, when we got to the head of the line at the door of the high court itself, we simply and nonviolently cut the line! There we were standing in the very front of everyone else!
What effrontery! what gall! "What kind of brazen affirmative action stunt could this possibly be?" the ensuing hushed silence seemed to inquire!
A smoldering, smattering of murmurings behind us began to grow into vigorous remonstrance. Soon, it was punctuated by the barbed pronouncement, "Hey, you guys can't cut in front of us! We were here first."
We did not respond nor turn around. Whereupon we were displaced at the front by those whom we had displaced, until we were pushed back about 20 or so persons from the front, where we came to rest. Throughout, we had never argued nor looked back.
We just stood in line, affirmatively, with our all-white law school colleagues from the East Coast. At the appointed time, we were ushered into a certain section of seats that allowed us to watch the entire arguments of counsel, some 1.5 hours, including the Court's processional and recessional.
Meanwhile, those more patient and polite members of the public who had stood in line much longer than we, were shunted in and out of the Court after 3 minutes of viewing in order to accommodate the massive crowds that were still waiting.
If there is a moral to this story it is this: "Victory most often goes to the audaciously presumptuous." To this aphorism, I bear witness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeFunis_v._Odegaard