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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lawyer2b (talk | contribs) at 23:47, 9 June 2006 (→Please support these two statements with sources.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

In 1993 President Clinton nominated HLS Prof. Lani Guinier to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, but after a negative reaction by some conservatives got traction in the mainstream media (she was labelled her a "Quota Queen" among other things) her nomination was withdrawn, after Clinton claimed he read her law review articles and found them too liberal.

Fast forward to the Bernard Kerik dust up, and all of the sudden Lani Guinier has gotten lumped in with Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, Clinton nominees for U.S. Attorney General who got derailed by "nanny problems." One might expect this from Fox News (see e.g. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,141228,00.html) and MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6696925/). But Jon Stewart also got in the act, making fun of her for having a nanny problem on Comedy Central (see clip here if you scroll down to the Kerik clip on12/14: http://www.crooksandliars.com/). Even the Washington Post make this unfounded accusation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A57960-2004Dec11_2.html), although unlike Fox et. al., on December 14th the Washington Post issued a correction, the text of which was:

"Correction A Dec. 12 article incorrectly said that Lani Guinier's nomination to head the Justice Department's civil rights division under President Bill Clinton was withdrawn because of a "nanny problem." There was no such problem, and the Clinton White House withdrew the nomination because of controversy over Guinier's legal writings."

On December 15th, just a day after the WaPo correction, however, the Baltimore Sun ran a whole new story alleging that Lani had a nanny problem, and countless bloggers have picked this up as "fact." One starts to wonder whether there are only a handful of reporters in this entire country, whose sloppily researched stories get picked up and republished a million times without the least bit of factchecking. And then, enter the Internet. Once a few websites published the erroneous accusation, other sites,and many blogs, linked to them for "support" on this contention. Within a short amount of time a Google search revealed so many sites that made this false claim that her fictitious "nanny problem" seems entrenched, well document and irrefutable.

I reprint below the text of Lani's letter to the Baltimore Sun about this:

To whom it may Concern:

In 1993 my nomination to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was nixed, abetted by a media spin cycle that distorted my views of democracy. Now I find your staff reporters erroneously catapulting me into the pantheon of nominees who lost out because they did not pay taxes for a domestic worker.

To set the record straight, there was never an issue during my nomination imbroglio about nonpayment of taxes for a domestic worker. President Clinton withdrew my nomination because of a controversy about my academic writings about democracy. The controversy was fueled by a media firestorm that reported my views inaccurately and out of context. To my dismay, I have somehow been swept up in another media controversy challenging my integrity in defiance of the facts. Other media outlets have since issued corrections. I trust The Baltimore Sun will do the same.

Those who are interested in the facts, including the ideas about democracy that were the sole source of my "dis-appointment" in 1993, might want to read two books I authored explaining those events: The Tyranny of the Majority (Free Press: 1994) and Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice (Simon and Schuster: 1998).

Lani Guinier

Professor of Law

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

Please support these two statements with sources.

User:194.215.75.17 added these two statements (among others):

1. During this two week process, she was also made famous as the "object of a modern, instant witch-hunt".

2. Throughout the process, Guinier was not allowed to defend herself against critics and media who chose select excerpts from her academic work without context, reducing complex legal arguments to simplistic phrases.

These do not sound WP:NPOV. I would like to see these backed up with sources. If they can't be, they need to be removed. Even with sources, I have a feeling they probably will need to be rewritten to include the perspective they originate from. Lawyer2b 06:40, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Throughout the process, Guinier was not allowed to defend herself against critics and media who chose select excerpts from her academic work without context, reducing complex legal arguments to simplistic phrases.

Number 2 above is simple fact, not really provable because you'd be trying to prove a null hypothesis. We'd have to prove the reverse -- that there were various articles published at the time in which Clinton defended Guinier or in which Guinier corrected/engaged these critics. You won't find any. Virtually every major news source noted that Clinton failed to defend his choice, and that Guinier was not given the hearing in which she would be able to explain her writings to Congress.

She did take the unusual step of going on TV newsshows, as the Times of London later noted, but only to insist on her right to a trial, saying `Fairness requires that I be given an opportunity to present my views in the Senate,' After the fact, Clinton himself "acknowledged that Ms. Guinier had fought until the end to be able to appear before Senate Judiciary Committee to explain her views."

The same news sources tended to repeat phrases like this, also from the Times: "Among other things, Ms Guinier has appeared to challenge the principles of one-man, one-vote, and majority rule, and has advocated extreme measures to increase black political power." Again, please find a reasonably accessible news source that even tried to address these very complex legal concepts (any of Guinier's writings touch on these ideas).

In late 1993, the cover story of the Columbia Journalism Review (arguably the #1 journalism school in the country) concluded: "Opponents of Lani Guinier's nomination to head the Justice Dept's Civil Rights Division successfully distorted select bits of her previous academic writings and sparked a media frenzy surrounding the candidate. The press was manipulated by political opponents who were quoting Guinier out of context. Media representatives are guilty of not thoroughly researching the writings in question. Instead, a caricaturized representation of Guinier and her philosophies was perpetuated by an uninformed media quick to seize the negative sound bites of her detractors, chief among whom was Clint Bolick." (abstract, Columbia Journalism Review 32:3 (Sept-Oct 1993): p36.

All of which makes Clinton look worse than Lani herself, but that's another story...

User:Malinchista, everything you just wrote is very interesting but it doesn't establish what you added to the article as a verifiable fact. At best, it is the opinion of the Columbia Journalism Review and therefore should only be included in wikipedia if it is identified as such. You seem to have a great source there, though, so why not just include a paraphrasing of what the abstract said along with the citation? P.S. - Sign your edits! :-) Lawyer2b 23:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. An article in the CJR is not an opinion but a scholarly conclusion based on an objective, substantive study, reviewed and approved by scholarly peers. It's very much a wiki-approved source.

I agree that an article in the CJR is a scholarly conclusion but it is still an opinion and may or may not be true. See Michael A. Bellesiles for examples of "scholarly conclusions" that were highly contested opinions. Lawyer2b 02:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC) P.S. if you put four tildes in a row like this: ~~~~ , wikipedia will sign your name and put a date stamp.

"I was ordered by both Justice Department and White House staff not to speak to the press in advance of confirmation hearings. This was the one area in which the White House both took charge and remained unambiguous in its directives: as an executive branch nominee, I must remain silent." (Guinier, Lift Every Voice (Simon & Schuster, 1998), 50.)

L2b, will you please quit wasting our time? That the media blasted on Lani is not controversial --conservatives are proud of the fact that they derailed a nomination, and liberals are chagrined. Big whoop.
Further, I've provided citation after citation and you have provided nothing but "uh uh, I don't think so." Do some research, read another piece of Guinier's work, add something substantive instead of nitpicking at nonexistent slights. Please. Malinchista 08:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel I'm wasting your time, however I'm sure you would agree that an article on someone as important as Ms. Guinier is worthy of making sure wikipedia policy is followed, to wit, that opinion is identified in someway as opinion.

Where you and I seem to differ is it appears you believe, "if it can be verified that something was described as a fact in a scholarly journal or by Ms. Guinier, then can be presented as a fact in wikipedia." I believe this is mistaken. That something can be verified as having been written at all is necessary for it to be included in wikipedia in the first place. Whether it is presented as the opinion of the original author or as a fact is another matter. For example, that "White House policy forbid her from speaking to the media" is a claim Guinier makes but it is not an established fact. If actual verifiable orders from the White House could be cited then, it is no longer in the realm of her opinion but rather a fact. P.S. - Good job on the tildes.  :-) Lawyer2b 23:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)