Most people would probably think that having served as a clerk to a Supreme Court justice would be a resume booster, particularly if the justice in question was Thurgood Marshall, who, as a lawyer, successfully argued against school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education and went on to become the first African-American on the court. But during this week’s confirmation hearings, Republican senators have attacked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan for having clerked for Marshall, who they consider to have been an “activist judge.”
In this First Look video, Alison Stewart speaks with Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who has known Kagan since her student days, and asks how having clerked for Marshall could be considered a negative.
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