Panel debates media, U.S. Supreme Court

The panel discussion, which C-SPAN also broadcasted live, was moderated by sociology professor Paul Starr. “Full Court Press: The Supreme Court, the Media, and Public Understanding” included New Yorker writer and CNN contributor Jeffrey Toobin, Slate.com writer and editor Emily Bazelon, New York Times correspondent Adam Liptak and Slate.com editor and legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick. The panelists attracted an audience so large that some late-comers had to resort to sitting on the lecture hall steps, and it even drew Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80, former dean of the Wilson School and current director of policy planning for the U.S. State Department.

The contributors fielded questions on issues including the Court’s politics, the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 and the problems involved with reporting on the Court.

“The peculiar thing about the Supreme Court is that it is very well known as an institution and virtually unknown in terms of what it does and who’s on it,” Toobin explained. The result is an idiosyncratic relationship between the court, the media and the public, several of the panelists said.

At one point, they discussed why Justice Clarence Thomas is unpopular with the public, hypothesizing that the Anita Hill controversy that gained publicity during his confirmation hearing may be a major reason.

Despite the serious subject, the tone of the event remained engaging and humorous, stimulated by audience queries and sentiments such as Harvard alumnus Toobin’s claim that “only at Princeton could a Harvard graduate count as diversity,” referring to his presence on the Yale-dominated panel.

Toobin added that his years of reporting haven’t quelled his feelings of intimidation upon entering the Supreme Court’s quiet press room. “I feel like a gawky adolescent when I go in there,” he said.

Lithwick said that Court reporters suffer from a paradoxical mindset. “Most Supreme Court reporters, myself included, talk about the law as if it’s alive and the justices as if they’re dead,” she explained.

The panelists also discussed the inescapable role of politics in the Supreme Court. Lithwick noted that reporting on the Supreme Court results in only two types of stories: ones in which the political leanings of the Court matter, and everything else.

Toobin added that Sotomayor’s insistence that her judicial philosophy of fidelity to the law was “an insult to our intelligence and the confirmation process,” because the ideologies of the justices are vital parts of the system.

Toobin and Bazelon both highlighted the Court’s relationship with President Obama as something to watch.

“I’m most interested in whether we have a retirement this term,” Bazelon said, “because we’re going to learn a lot about Obama.”