The Court’s Reporters
05/25/23 • 35 min
3 Listeners
Unlike other branches of government, the Supreme Court operates with almost no oversight. No cameras are allowed in the courtroom, no binding code of ethics, and records of their activities are incredibly hard to get. So how do reporters uncover the activities of the nine most powerful judges in the country?
Live from the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, host Julia Longoria talks to journalists behind bombshell investigations of the Court and its justices and how Clarence Thomas’ personal relationships intersect with his professional life.
Voices in the episode include:
• Jo Becker — New York Times reporter in the investigative unit
• Justin Elliott — ProPublica reporter
Learn more:
• "The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas" by Danny Hakim and Jo Becker
• "Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire" by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski
• "Billionaire Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice didn’t disclose the deal" by by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.
Unlike other branches of government, the Supreme Court operates with almost no oversight. No cameras are allowed in the courtroom, no binding code of ethics, and records of their activities are incredibly hard to get. So how do reporters uncover the activities of the nine most powerful judges in the country?
Live from the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, host Julia Longoria talks to journalists behind bombshell investigations of the Court and its justices and how Clarence Thomas’ personal relationships intersect with his professional life.
Voices in the episode include:
• Jo Becker — New York Times reporter in the investigative unit
• Justin Elliott — ProPublica reporter
Learn more:
• "The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas" by Danny Hakim and Jo Becker
• "Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire" by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski
• "Billionaire Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas. The Justice didn’t disclose the deal" by by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.
Previous Episode
Clarence X
1 RecommendationsTo many Americans, Clarence Thomas makes no sense. For more than 30 years on the Court, he seems to have been on a mission — to take away rights that benefit Black people. As a young man, though, Thomas listened to records of Malcolm X speeches on a loop and strongly identified with the tenets of Black Nationalism. This week on More Perfect, we dig into his writings and lectures, talk to scholars and confidants, and explore his past, all in an attempt to answer: what does Clarence Thomas think Clarence Thomas is doing?
Voices in the episode include:
• Juan Williams — senior political analyst at Fox News
• Corey Robin — professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
• Angela Onwuachi-Willig — Dean of Boston University School of Law
• Stephen F. Smith — Notre Dame Law School professor
Learn more:
• 1993: Graham v. Collins
• 1994: Holder v. Hall
• 1999: Chicago v. Morales
• 2003: Grutter v. Bollinger
• 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College
• 2022: Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina
• “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas” by Corey Robin
• “Black Conservatives, Center Stage” by Juan Williams
• “Just Another Brother on the SCT?: What Justice Clarence Thomas Teaches Us About the Influence of Racial Identity” by Angela Onwuachi-Willig
• “Clarence X?: The Black Nationalist Behind Justice Thomas's Constitutionalism” by Stephen F. Smith
• “My Grandfather’s Son” by Justice Clarence Thomas
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.
Next Episode
The Political Thicket Reprise
This week, we revisit one of the most important Supreme Court cases you’ve probably never heard of: Baker v. Carr, a redistricting case from the 1960s, which challenged the justices to consider what might happen if they stepped into the world of electoral politics. It’s a case so stressful that it pushed one justice to a nervous breakdown, put another justice in the hospital, brought a boiling feud to a head, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever.
Voices in the episode include:
• Tara Grove — More Perfect legal advisor, University of Texas at Austin law professor
• Guy-Uriel Charles — Harvard Law School professor
• Louis Michael Seidman — Georgetown Law School professor
• Sam Issacharoff — NYU law school professor
• Craig A. Smith — PennWest California humanities professor and Charles Whittaker's biographer
• J. Douglas Smith — author of "On Democracy's Doorstep"
• Alan Kohn — former Supreme Court clerk for Charles Whittaker (1957 term)
• Kent Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's son
• Kate Whittaker — Charles Whittaker's granddaughter
Learn more:
• 1962: Baker v. Carr
• 2000: Bush v. Gore
• 2016: Evenwel v. Abbott
Music in this episode by Gyan Riley, Alex Overington, David Herman, Tobin Low and Jad Abumrad.
Archival interviews with Justice William O. Douglas come from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library.
Special thanks to Jerry Goldman and to Whittaker's clerks: Heywood Davis, Jerry Libin and James Adler.
Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.
Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @moreperfectpodcast, and Twitter @moreperfect.
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