Affirmative Action on the Chopping Block
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2022
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Cara McClellan, former counsel at NAACP LDF, and founding Director of the Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic, at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Professor McClellan takes us through an extensive trial record largely ignored in oral arguments at SCOTUS this past week.
Then, Dahlia is joined by David Rothkopf whose book, American Resistance: The inside story of how the deep state saved the nation, details the folks who stuck around and tried to hold the line during the Trump years, and what we can learn from them.
In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about the judges pushing back in gun cases post Bruen, and the lower courts defying Supreme Court precedent as they seek to curtail LGBTQ rights.
Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the rule |
| 0:10.6 | of law and the Supreme Court. I am Daya Lithuic. I cover those things for Slate and just |
| 0:15.8 | a heads up that I am a little under the weather and so my voice sounds like this. As we head |
| 0:22.7 | into the midterms, there is an immense amount of legal news, including abortion protesters |
| 0:29.5 | who interrupted oral arguments on Wednesday. According to the government petitioner |
| 0:38.8 | Violeta Diak 200 affirmative action once again on the chopping block at the Supreme Court |
| 0:43.6 | on Monday. This is very explicit in your brief. It just doesn't matter if our institutions |
| 0:49.8 | look like America. You say this on page 11 in your reply brief and I guess what I am asking |
| 0:56.5 | you is doesn't it? And new reports that Donald Trump's lawyers saw Justice Clarence Thomas |
| 1:03.8 | as their ticket to setting aside the 2020 election. Today's is another jam-packed show, Happy |
| 1:10.3 | Weekend, and we're going to start this show by looking at Monday's lengthy discussion of |
| 1:16.0 | the use of race in college admissions. Later on in the show, we will interview political |
| 1:21.6 | insider David Rothkopf about his brand new book, American Resistance. It's a look at the |
| 1:27.0 | so-called deep-state actors who kept democracy from flying off the rails during the Trump |
| 1:33.0 | years. This is all part of a systematic effort to eliminate the guardrails that keep an |
| 1:41.8 | authoritarian from taking hold in the United States. Later still, Slate Plus listeners will |
| 1:47.2 | get to hear from Mark Joseph Stern with the roundup of all the stuff we couldn't pack |
| 1:52.2 | into this main show including in Bolden Lower Court judges again, guns again, and the |
| 2:00.1 | midterm elections and the courts. Slate Plus members get access to bonus segments like |
| 2:05.5 | my chats with Mark, add free versions of all of Slate's podcasts, and they never hit |
| 2:11.2 | a paywall on Slate.com. What's more, Slate Plus members support all the journalism we |
| 2:16.5 | are doing here on the show and at the magazine. And we are always so grateful for that. If |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Audio, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Audio and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.