North Carolina Central Law Professor Irving Joyner discusses the Supreme Court weakening the Voting Rights Act and aids GOP efforts to control the House
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Transcript
17 segmentsThe Supreme Court has weakened a landmark civil rights era law that has increased minority representation in Congress and elsewhere. The ruling was 6 to 3 on Wednesday. The court's conservative majority struck down a majority black congressional district in Louisiana. Irving Joyner has followed the Voting Rights Act for decades as a law professor at North Carolina Central University and we're honored to have him speak with us at this time. Professor, how are you? Fine, fine. Jill, how are you? I'm fine. Were you surprised by this ruling yesterday? Well, a kind of mixed being surprised and kind of expecting a decision similar to this. We have known for a while that the U.S. Supreme Court has been using every opportunity that presented to them to undermine the legitimacy and ongoing presence of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, an act that is very important to African Americans and racial minorities as they seek to participate in the franchise. So the fact that they have been incrementally cutting back on the reach of the Voting Rights Act was something that you kind of expected. But again, I was surprised at the exact wording of the opinion that Samuel Alito issued. What about the wording surprised you? Well, the notion that when you seek to remedy a racial violation, that race cannot be a part of the calculus in developing the cure for that violation, notwithstanding the fact that the 15th Amendment speaks to the issue of race, the 14th Amendment speaks to the issue of race, but to hear the Supreme Court. say that where you find a violation that has occurred based on race, that you can't create a remedy that is racially based or that is designed to cure the racial harm that was created by the violation. So that was surprising with the kind of vehement as authored by Samuel Alito. We're coming up on the 61-year anniversary. This August will be the 61-year anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and that came after the bloody Sunday attack on civil rights marchers, as you know, in Selma, Alabama. And that was really the origins of the Voting Rights Act, right? Yes, that was it. That had been a long... organization, organized efforts to achieve the right to vote, particularly in the South. North Carolina was one of those states that was caught up in that because there had been a denial.
of the right to vote. Prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, there were only 10 African Americans from 1900 up until 1965 who had been elected to any office in the state of North Carolina. None had been elected into the North Carolina General Assembly, and at the time, only four African Americans had been elected to Congress. So this was the culmination of a long effort to protect or to advocate for the right to vote and calling on the government to aid in that effort to ensure that African Americans were able to participate in the political franchise with the same fervor and ability as similarly situated white. Are you concerned that this move by the Supreme Court will take us back to the Jim Crow era? I'm very concerned about that. That is something that we have expected to be the goal of a lot of the conservative political forces in this country, and particularly here in North Carolina, not only looking at the notion of gerrymandering, but also the actual right to vote and who can vote. despite the fact that the North Carolina Constitution gives to all citizens who are 18 years of older the right to vote, but we know that their efforts to chip away at that ability. So, you know, reverting back to the old Jim Crow era is certainly one of the goals that we see that's manifested by some of the political powers that be. So this will provide an open door for political mapmakers at every level. And we just saw something like this in Virginia just last week. There's been discussions about what will happen in Florida. And I really want, of course, we had something here in North Carolina. I wonder if we could ever, it's going to get to the point where I wonder what the point of voting is when the maps are so gerrymandered one way or the other. I agree. And what we have to do is to find some middle ground where we can respect the rights of all citizens to participate in the franchise and that people of goodwill will come together to make that a reality. From 1968 and North Carolina forward until 2010. We were moving in that direction. Vast gains were made in this area. Since 2010, the tide has turned politically, and now we're fighting an uphill battle just to stay afloat in this political arena.
Professor Irving Joyner, longtime law professor at North Carolina Central University. Professor, our very best to you. We always enjoy hearing your voice here on the airways. Thanks for joining us here today. We appreciate it. Okay. Thank you for this invitation.