Talk:Thurgood Marshall

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Contents

[edit] Supreme court cases? (suggestion)

This article should contain more info on Marshall's decisions as SC justice. --[[User:ZekeMacNei72.84.199.156 22:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)l|ZekeMacNeil]] 03:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Totally agree with ZekeMacNeill. Should have info about Brown v. Board of Education, his most famous case. --speedoflight 08:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Needs more background on SC trials!!!!!!

Controversy section on Goldberg v. Kelly is wrong. The case was about Welfare benefits, and Justice Brennan wrote the majority opinion with three dissents from conservative justices. Removed the entire section.

[edit] Application to the University of Maryland

to not perpetuate myths. --Noitall 04:20, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Marshall and Maryland Law School

I have read his bio on numeorus sites, all say he did apply and was rejected.

way, whether a "link" to a internet site is available).  --Noitall 03:57, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
At the dedication of the library I mentioned above, the Sun did an article on it. They dide by his biographer, Juan Williams, March 8, 2004 (available in Nexis): "In 1930, Thurgood Marshall, a lanky honors graduate fresh from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, realized that the law school he hoped to attend did not accept black students. Though the University of Maryland School of Law was just blocks from his parents' home in West Baltimore, he decided it would be a waste of time and upsetting to even bother to apply...
"But he held a grudge against the law school, that had never given him a chance. In the tare [sic] 1970s, Marshall told an interviewer that he had dreamed about 'getting even with Maryland for not letting me go to its law school.' Only a year after graduating from Howard, the 25-year-old Marshall put a newly devised strategy for fighting segregation to the test: He would net challenge the segregation law itself but attempt to show a violation of the equal rights promised to all citizens under the Constitution. He persuaded a black Amherst College graduate, Donald Gaines Murray, to apply to Maryland's law school. As expected, Murray was rejected. Marshall had Murray write a letter to the university asking why he'd been denied admission. The university responded with a letter affirming its ban on black students and Marshall used it as the basis for a lawsuit against the university. The case went to court in June 1935, and a Baltimore City Court stunned lawyers on both sides by ruling that Murray must be admitted...
"In 1980, the University of Maryland School of Law opened a new library and named it for Marshall, who in 1967 had become the Supreme Court's first black justice. The school repeatedly called Marshall to invite him to the opening. Marshall refused to attend, and he wrote to his fellow justices: 'I am very certain that Maryland is trying to salve its conscience for excluding the Negroes from the University of Maryland for such a long period of time.' If the school didn't want anything to do with the young Thurgood Marshall, he said, then he didn't want anything to do with them now. But as far as he was concerned, he had repaired the scales of injustice that had weighed against him personally."


I too noticed this error in the article. It is stated in Carl Rowan's biography of Thurgood Marshall that he did indeed apply to the University of Maryland at College Park. On page 45 it states, "Both his state of poverty and the inconvenience of travel outside the Maryland told Thurgood that he should study law at the University of Maryland at College Park. When Marshall applied for admission, President R.A. Pearson had an aide write to Marshall to tell him, in effect, to drop dead. Maryland and all the professional schools of all southern state universities rejected black applicants."

             Mark


According to my professors at Maryland Law, the way it went was that he never formally applied because the deam told him that he shouldn't bother. They used that in my legal history course as an example of not always trusting secondary sources. But the underlying thing is that the school would not let him attend and he was always bitter about it (and rightly so). Eoconn 16:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Eoconn

[edit] Ambiguities

"His father, William Marshall, instilled in him an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the rule of law. Marshall was the grandson of a slave." This is ambiguous - the latter sentence could be referring to either Thurgood or William. Could somebody who knows for sure which is correct please fix this? --Calair 01:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I found a reliable source for the fact that he was a descendent of slaves, so I changed the wording from "Marshall was the great grandson of a slave". If you find something more precise, please update the reference. --89.98.47.147 15:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, "While [Murray v. Maryland] was a moral precedent, it was not a legal one, and had no authority outside the state of Maryland" - presumably it *was* a legal precedent for Maryland, just not at a federal level. --Calair 01:21, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I think this was a great page no one could have put his life then this. He gad a great life and I did not know about him till I looked on here it made me won't to be lawer likem and I became one just by looking at this , this is just like meating my love for the first time and that is law because of Thurgood Marshall. Sheila mc march 29 2006

[edit] TV

I read somewhere that in the last few years of his life he got despondent and pretty much stopped working. He would sit in his chambers and watch TV, including daytime soaps, while his clerks did all the work drafting opinions and, increasingly, dissents. They knew what he wanted and simply carried it out for him to sign.

209.247.5.62 02:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I re-added this section:

==Later Years on Court== Unfortunately, Marshall's reputation in later years on the Court marred his legacy. Clerks in the 1980's noted his decline, often spending his afternoons watching television rather than writing opinions, which were left to the clerks themselves. He was also said to be falling asleep during oral arguments, doodling during judicial conferences, and generally treating his position as unimportant {{Fact|date=May 2007}}. Like [[Blackmun]], a fellow justice who concurred with Marshall 90% of the time during this period, Marshall's reputation in these "twilight" years became that of a justice detached from the workings of the court and unintellectually dogmatic {{Fact|date=May 2007}}.

I wasn't sure if we should leave it out or not. --Eastlaw 07:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

And I've tagged it as of doubtful neutrality. In my view, it can't stay where it is unless verifiable references are added -- and soon. If not, then it's got to go. -- Lincolnite 15:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Agree 100%. It might be true, and if so it would be a good thing to put in, but if so it *must* be cited. -- Dominus 17:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't be put in pending citations, however, especially based on an anonymous comment beginning with the phrase "I read somewhere that...", that is just sloppy.

[edit] death location

did he die in Bethesda, Maryland or Washington DC? both are in the article. which is correct? Katie 17:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC) He died in Bethesda, Maryland.

[edit] Murray didn't overturn Plessy

The summary in this article of of Murray v. Pearson claims that it "was the first to overturn Plessy". However, the opinion did not overturn Plessy, and in fact took pains not to (since the Maryland Supreme Court of course could not overturn a U.S. Supreme Court precedent). The Murray opinion did not hold that "separate but equal" was impermissible, but rather than Maryland's provision of law education was unequal. The opinion strongly hints that if there existed separate white and black law schools of comparable quality, then that would have been permitted; the integration remedy was adopted only because it was the only one available to the courts, as the courts don't have the authority to order the opening of new schools. If anything, the opinion explicitly reaffirms Plessy rather than overturns it, but holds that Maryland is in violation of the "equal" part of "separate but equal". --Delirium 02:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)