Lani Guinier (by Smalagodi via Wikimedia)
Answer: Lani Guinier, the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship at the Harvard Law School.
President Clinton’s withdrawal of Guinier’s controversial nomination gave rise to significant criticism. William T. Coleman Jr., Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford (and the first African-American Supreme Court clerk), declared the withdrawal to be “a grave [loss], both for President Clinton and the country. The President’s yanking of the nomination, caving in to shrill, unsubstantiated attacks, was not only unfair, but some would say political cowardice.”
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President Clinton’s yanking of the nomination didn’t sit well with Niko Bowie either. Six years old at the time, Bowie approached the president at a golf course on Martha’s Vineyard and wanted to shout, “Why did did you dump Lani Guinier? She’s my mother!” But in the end, the kid held his tongue: “I was afraid the Secret Service would arrest me.”
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David Lat is editor at large and founding editor of Above the Law, as well as the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].