Imagine one of
the highest courts in the land being made up solely of White Americans. No,
this is not the Pre-Civil Rights Movement America we are talking about. This is
the modern state of affairs in Alabama’s supreme court, where all nine justices
are white. In fact, years prior to the passing of the Voter’s Rights Act,
Alabama’s highest court was still presided over by an all-white ensemble of
judges. One might ask, why is this even problematic? The thing is, this not
only shows how progression is moving at a snail’s pace in Alabama, but also
puts blacks and other minorities at a severe disadvantage. It is time for
Alabama to integrate its courts, enabling people who are not white to have a
larger voice in their community in the form of fair and just representation.
Stephanie
Mencimer of Motherjones.com talks about this topic at length, explaining why
this is problematic and speaks about a lawsuit that could potentially address
and fix this issue.
Only two African Americans have ever served,
and only after first being appointed by a governor. The state's other highest
appellate courts, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals,
have never seen a black judge, despite the fact that more than a quarter of the
state's voting-age population is African American. (Only two African Americans
have been elected to a statewide office in Alabama. Ever.)[1]
Mencimer also
points out the following:
In
1986, a federal judge concluded that after Reconstruction, Alabama
intentionally shifted its elections from single-member district style voting to
at-large races to dilute the voting strength of African Americans,
"consistently erect[ing] barriers to keep black persons from full and
equal participation in the social, economic and political life of the state."(1)
This
situation is also problematic not only because it alienates African Americans
from having representation in the courts, but also because statistics indicate
that the Alabama’s criminal justice system as a whole reflects racial bias.
This is shown by the sentencing of [primarily] minority children due to
mandatory life without parole sentences in addition to 80% of people on death
row being convicted of killing a white person. In addition, even if African
Americans make up only 25% of Alabama’s population, they make up 60% of its
population within prisons.
In my opinion, this
perpetuation of an all-white supreme court is a deliberate attempt to
marginalize blacks and other minorities. Alabama’s highest court being made up
only of white individuals demonstrates how backwards this state is when it
comes to voting rights. Thankfully, voting rights activists have aimed their
sights on this issue today. Voting rights activists’ lawsuit centralizes on the
idea that Alabama courts should change their voting procedures and effectively
provide minority communities the choice to elect candidates they deem would
benefit their interests.
If Alabama took
the initiative to change its highest court’s racial composition and the process
of being elected to courts, there would definitely be more positive outcomes
and less bias in that state’s prison population. I think that Alabama’s high
courts should heed the warnings of voting rights activists and their lawsuits
because this simply is not the mid 1900s. African Americans and other people of
color deserve a voice in their community and bias against them in a so called
‘justice system’ renders this system unjust.
