Excerpt
Jeff was my classmate at the University of Alabama School of Law from 1970 to 1973. I was one of two black law students in our freshman class. The class of 150 students was divided alphabetically and I was the lone black law student in a section of 75 students that included Jeff. It was the longest and loneliest three years of my life. To put matters in perspective, I arrived on campus a full year before any black athlete had joined any UA sports team. I attended the law school on a desegregation scholarship awarded by the NAACP.
The first white student to acknowledge my humanity on campus was Margaret Smith Marston. The first white student to invite me to join an organization was Jeff Sessions. He approached me, introduced himself, shook my hand and asked if I would be interested in joining the Young Republicans on campus.
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Standing on the Side of What’s Right
Standing on the Side of What’s Right
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Originally Published (via Facebook) on May 10, 2016; Updated and Republished on November 18, 2016
©Copyrighted and Originally Published (via Facebook) on May 10, 2016; Updated and Republished on November 18, 2016
I am a political independent who judges public officials on the basis of their conduct in office, not their political views, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, or party affiliation. I have worked hard throughout my adult life to be on the side of what’s right even when it is unpopular to do so. My 46-year personal relationship with U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) is a case in point.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sessions, who was then the U.S. Attorney for Mobile, to a federal judgeship in Mobile. The nomination drew the ire of various state political organizations and national civil rights groups. Thomas Figures, a black Assistant U.S. Attorney in Sessions’ office, provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with testimony of what he said were racially insensitive remarks attributed to Sessions while the two of them worked together. Sessions testified that the remarks referenced by Thomas were taken out of context or were made in jest. There was no testimony that Jeff used racial slurs or that he was demeaning to black co-workers, court personnel, or constituents.
The groups opposing Jeff’s nomination immediately seized upon Figures’ testimony to mobilize enough votes to kill his nomination. Jeff became only the second nominee to the federal judiciary in 48 years whose nomination was killed by the Committee.
Jeff was subsequently elected in 1994 as Alabama’s attorney general. In 1996, Jeff was elected as one of the state’s two U.S. senators. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. Jeff has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his Attorney General. Civil rights groups are already lining up to oppose Jeff's confirmation.
My Law School Experience with Sessions
Jeff was my classmate at the University of Alabama School of Law from 1970 to 1973. I was one of two black law students in our freshman class. The class of 150 students was divided alphabetically and I was the lone black law student in a section of 75 students that included Jeff. It was the longest and loneliest three years of my life. To put matters in perspective, I arrived on campus a full year before any black athlete had joined any UA sports team. I attended the law school on a desegregation scholarship awarded by the NAACP.
The first white student to acknowledge my humanity on campus wasMargaret Smith Marston. The first white student to invite me to join an organization was Jeff Sessions. He approached me, introduced himself, shook my hand and asked if I would be interested in joining the Young Republicans on campus. The invitation was sincere and gracious, but I respectfully declined. Jeff thanked me for my consideration of his invitation and asked me to let him know if I changed my mind. If so, he would be happy to escort me to my first meeting.
Jeff and I were cordial with each other for the entire three years we were in law school. I was married at the time and so was Jeff. His wife Mary was a wonderful spouse and a devoted Christian woman who also treated me with kindness.
As Jeff was going through his brutal confirmation hearing for the Mobile federal judgeship, I kept waiting for him to call me as a character witness to rebut the suggestion in Thomas’ testimony that he was a racist. Jeff was a conservative then, as he is now, but he was NOT a racist. I did not want to voluntarily inject myself into Jeff’s nasty confirmation fight. However, had I been called as a witness by either side in this battle, I would have gone to Washington and truthfully answered questions about Jeff’s daily interaction with me during our law school years. This call never came.
A few years later, I saw Jeff at a legal seminar in Birmingham. He was sitting by himself in the hallway outside of the meeting room. I sat down next to him and chatted about his Senate confirmation hearing. I could tell that Jeff was still emotionally wounded from this awful experience. Jeff thought the senators who opposed him had been insensitive to his rights and reputation as a judicial nominee. He was right. Jeff’s confirmation hearing had turned into a politically motivated character assassination.
I asked Jeff why he did not call me as a witness for him. I reminded him of how we had met and had spent three years together at UA when nobody knew our names.
My law school interaction with Jeff had occurred eleven years before he met and worked with Thomas Figures. Jeff was kind, courteous and respectfully to me at all times during our law school experience. He was constantly inviting me to Republican Party gatherings on campus. Mind you, this was at a time when Alabama was under solid Democratic Party control.
My talk with Jeff made him tear up. He asked me whether I would have really testified for him about our law school years, and I answered “yes”. I told Jeff that my testimony would have been extremely relevant, especially since my landmark civil rights cases after graduating from law school had favorably reshaped Alabama’s educational, political, economic, and criminal justice landscape. No witness who appeared before the Judiciary Committee against Jeff could have matched my established and nationally recognized civil rights credentials. Plus, my personal connection with Jeff was genuine, deep and born out of ordinary acts of kindness.
At the end of our conversation, I told Jeff that I had failed him and myself. I should have volunteered to stand by his side and tell the story of his true character at his confirmation hearing. The fact that I did not rise on my own to defend Jeff’s good name and character haunted me for years. I promised Jeff that I would never stand idly by and allow another good and decent person endure a similar character assassination if it was within my power to stop it.
Saving Alexis Herman's Nomination as Secretary of Labor
It was Senator Jeff Sessions who rose in 1997 to protect longtime civil rights activist and Democratic Party operative Alexis Herman from then-Senator Ted Kennedy's vicious character assassination of Herman during her confirmation hearing as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of Labor. Kennedy supported Harris Wofford for the position.
I supported Herman, who was a close personal friend. I worked with my political friends and allies to get her confirmed.
The two major labor unions lined up with Ted Kennedy. Many Senate Republicans opposed Herman, a Mobile native, because of her longtime Democratic Party and civil rights activism. Her role as director of public liaison at the White House also brought controversy – particularly her attendance at the now-infamous White House coffees.
Jeff Sessions had nothing to gain politically from protecting Herman. She never helped him on any political issue and was part of the coalition of civil rights groups that successfully opposed Jeff's 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship in Mobile.
After Herman was confirmed, she served with distinction as the first African-American woman in the position, from May 1, 1997 to January 20, 2001. Herman favorably impacted the lives of millions of American workers while serving as the Secretary of Labor.
While Jeff’s defense of Herman was not politically popular in many Alabama communities, it was the right thing to do.
Saving John Ashcroft's Nomination for Attorney General
Fast-forward to President George W. Bush’s December 2000 nomination of Missouri Republican Senator John David Ashcroft for U.S. Attorney General. Like Jeff Sessions, Ashcroft’s nomination met with stiff opposition from national civil rights groups. I did not know Ashcroft personally, but I could tell that the same kind of character assassination I had seen in Jeff’s 1986 confirmation hearing was in play again.
The Ashcroft nomination was on the ropes and seemed doomed. I remembered my promise to Jeff. After thoroughly and independently researching Ashcroft’s overall record as a U.S. senator, a Missouri governor and a state attorney general, I determined that Ashcroft was NOT a racist, despite the fact that his views on affirmative action and judicial remedies for the desegregation of Missouri public schools during the 1970s did not match my views on these subjects. By today’s standards, Ashcroft was a mainstream Republican conservative.
With two days to go before Ashcroft’s scheduled January 31, 2001, confirmation vote, I knew I needed to act quickly to keep Ashcroft’s nomination from going down in flames from character assassination. I asked my Washington lawyer to contact Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, to see whether the Post would allow me to run a half page “Confirm John Ashcroft” open letter in the front section of the newspaper on the morning of the vote. Graham agreed. I penned my open letter on my Alamerica Bank stationary and paid $43,000 to publish it on January 31st. Jeff was pleasantly surprised to see my letter in the Post that morning and called me to ask if he could read it into the Congressional Record prior to the vote. I said, “yes”.
The “Confirm John Ashcroft” open letter lifted Ashcroft’s nomination out of the zone of danger. Ashcroft was confirmed as the 79th Attorney General of the United States by a vote of 58 to 42. He served with distinction in this position from 2001 to 2005.
After the vote, Ashcroft tried for days to reach me by phone to say, “thank you”. We never connected because of my busy international travel schedule, but he left several voice messages of thanks.
After the vote, Ashcroft tried for days to reach me by phone to say, “thank you”. We never connected because of my busy international travel schedule, but he left several voice messages of thanks.
I would not meet Ashcroft until nine years later when I was attempting to buy the St. Louis Rams football team. Jeff arranged the meeting. Ashcroft thanked me repeatedly for standing by his side in what he said was his “darkest hour” as a public official. I told Ashcroft my story about Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing. Like Jeff, Ashcroft also teared up as I recounted how I had failed Jeff and how I vowed to never allow such a personal failure to happen again.
Standing on Principle
The moral of my Jeff Sessions/Alexis Herman/John Ashcroft story is this: If we truly believe in the promise of America, we must stand up for its ideals and principles when they matter the most. Integrity, accountability, transparency, decency and fairness are the hallmarks of good government, not race, gender, party affiliation, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or one’s socio-economic status in life. If and when we stand up for America’s core principles, we are truly serving our nation.
America is the greatest country on the planet. I know this firsthand because I work in 47 countries across four continents. All of us have an affirmative obligation as Americans to stand on the side of what’s right, even when it is uncomfortable and unpopular to do so.
Donald V. Watkins
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