Is Margaret Marshall A Spoiled, Affluent, Suburban Brat Who Uses “Civil Rights” to Advance Her Own Career?
            Many blacks have wondered about Margaret Marshall for years, particularly when she was first appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court in 1996 and then again when she compared blacks with homosexuals in 2003 and opined that homosexuals are the same as blacks in seeking “civil rights.”
            Marshall does not deny that she lived in a nice area as a child, the daughter of a steel executive in South Africa, who had no contact with blacks other than as domestic laborers. This continued until she entered college. When she was appointed a Justice of the SJC in 1996, her black critics saw her as a privileged white woman who became famous and affluent as a professional activist.
            An enlightening story about Marshall in the Boston Globe in 1996 portrayed that this woman from South Africa, who claims to have dedicated her life to helping blacks, did not convince the blacks of her credentials. They saw her as a prima donna.
            This Globe article was written by Kevin Cullen on September 16, 1996 and appeared on page A1.
            (An interesting note is that the Globe would never print such a story now. This one was written in 1996, before Pinch Sulzberger seized control of the Globe from the Taylor family in 1999 and installed New York Times exec Richard Gilman as Publisher. The Taylors had owned it since 1873 before selling to the Sulzbergers in 1993 for $1.1 billion with a promise from Pinch’s father that the Taylors would remain in complete control. This story from 1996 is much more open and balanced than the ones written after Marshall made an apparent deal with Pinch Sulzberger in 1999.)

            Ideals clash over SJC pick; Some laud Marshall, critics say she cut in line
EDITOR’S NOTE:  There will be comment from MassNews throughout this Boston Globe article which was published in 1996. The MassNews comments will be in boldface and surrounded by asterisks.
            When the most vociferous critics of Supreme Judicial Court nominee Margaret H. Marshall emerged from the black community, her [white] friends were stunned because she has, by all accounts, taken to heart the plight of blacks both in this country and her native South Africa.
            Marshall grew up somewhat sheltered from the insidious realities of apartheid, but then dedicated much of her early adult life to campaigning against it. After she moved to the United States in 1968, she continued her antiapartheid activism, even as she climbed the corporate law ladder. By the 1980s, she was making a six-figure salary, but volunteered to represent a black man on Death Row in Georgia who was later executed.

**********************************************************                          Marshall chose a dramatic case far away because that made her a national figure. She didn’t take a mundane case of someone next door in Cambridge or Roxbury. This case was exciting!
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            Gov. William F. Weld, who nominated Marshall, shares the widely held view of her in the legal community: she is a smart, sophisticated woman, an able lawyer who is cerebral enough to tackle the scholarly niceties of the business of the state's highest court, and so personally engaging that she will excel at the human side, building consensus, reaching compromise on the most contentious issues.

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            She was chosen by her rich, worldly neighbor, Bill Weld.
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            But there are blacks, both local and native to South Africa, who resent what they see as a privileged white woman who, while championing their causes, never had to suffer their indignities. Margie Marshall, they say, can't speak for them because, despite her sympathies, she did not live in their skin.
            When Marshall came to the United States, she immediately gained access to college campuses and other public forums to denounce apartheid. Some black South Africans still chafe at the memory of how easy it was for Marshall to gain an audience to which they were denied, and which they believed they were more qualified and entitled to address.
            Now, say some blacks who want an African-American on the SJC, Marshall is cutting in line, stepping out front of them, again.
            Tall, blonde, always impeccably dressed and invariably in pearls, the 52-year-old Marshall has an uncanny ability to disarm even adversaries with wit, charm and a courteous, almost regal bearing. An expert in intellectual property law, she has been Harvard University's chief counsel since 1992. A former president of the Boston Bar Association, she is as plugged in, well-liked and admired as any lawyer in Boston. Given Marshall's reputation, Joan Lukey, a partner at the Boston law firm of Hale & Dorr, is taken aback by the criticism of her.
            "Margie," says Lukey, a close friend of Marshall's, "is the first one to say that the SJC needs a person of color."

**********************************************************                     Joan Lukey was President of the Boston Bar Association when it began work for homosexual marriage by enthusiastically denouncing the Protection of Marriage Amendment in 2001 by the vote of a 19-member Council, not by the 9,000 members of the organization. This was the Amendment which was sponsored by MCM.
            Lukey wrote to her members that her job is "difficult when the Association is confronted with issues on which our membership cannot reach consensus."
            In other words, the Boston Bar Association was very deeply divided.  Many wondered why the President of their Bar Association would want to touch an issue that was not legal in nature. Don't they have enough problems with the Massachusetts courts to worry about? Have they solved all of those concerns?
            Lukey wrote to her members: "That situation [about a divided Bar Association] is exacerbated when the issues involve passionately held views on opposite sides of the proverbial fence, so that feelings run high and are susceptible of being bruised, regardless of the direction in which the Association's leadership chooses to move. Among the key functions of the President is consensus building, and, when that is not possible, achieving compromise that is as compatible as possible with the views of the membership, while recognizing that compromise is roughly analogous to a tie game in a sports context."
            She continued, "In this environment, the Council, in a dignified and respectful fashion, with opposing views articulately stated, confronted the issue of whether to oppose House Bill 3375." She reports that they "never lost the tone of civility." (That was comforting to know.) They decided they would "compromise" by opposing the Bill but taking no stand on "same-sex marriage" for now.
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            Then why, ask Marshall's critics, didn't she refuse the appointment and tell Weld to nominate a black?
            The answer to that question has been repeated throughout Marshall's life, as she has demonstrated a sense of idealism that is tempered by a realistic, pragmatic view of society, the institutions that govern it, and human nature.
            Margie Marshall may admire martyrs, but there is nothing to suggest she ever aspired to be one.

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            In other words, she’s a great friend to have as long as the friendship doesn’t get in her way.

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              "Margie is and always has been a pragmatist," says Jules Browde, the lawyer and human rights activist who is now an appeals court judge in South Africa. "She is a woman of principle, but is not and never was an ideologue. There were some people here who didn't think she was left-leaning enough, that she was too willing to compromise. But I would say her qualities are precisely what would make her a good judge."

Awakening in the United States
            Margaret Hilary Marshall was born and grew up in the small town of Newcastle, in what is now the KwaZulu-Natal province, the second of three children. Her father was an executive at a local steel company. The family was not rich, but it was comfortable. Her mother belonged to a mainstream group that promoted integration, but the Marshalls were not an overtly political family. The only blacks Marshall encountered before she went to college were domestics. Her sheltered youth was typical in a country where racial separation was the law.
            Citing advice from Weld's office, Marshall and her husband, Anthony Lewis, the New York Times columnist, declined to be interviewed for this profile, saying they would wait until after her confirmation hearings before the governor's council, which begin Oct. 9.
            But in several interviews prior to her nomination, Marshall spoke of how her coming to the United States as a high school exchange student began a spiritual and intellectual awakening. She became aware of the evil of apartheid in her native country, and the need for greater civil rights in her adopted one.
            In Wilmington, Del., at 17, she watched television for the first time. She saw blacks led by Martin Luther King Jr. taking to the streets. She was impressed by the way King's demand for civil rights was balanced and legitimized by his abhorrence of violence and dedication to the fundamental principles of equality. She read books that were banned in her country, and was particularly moved by "Cry, the Beloved Country," the novel that crystalized what was so wrong about apartheid.
            "I learned more about my country by living in the US for one year than I had learned in 17 years in South Africa," she said.
            She was also struck by the power of, and the respect afforded to, the federal courts, which were opening doors for blacks.
     "I developed this incredible respect for democratic institutions, particularly the courts," Marshall recalled in 1991.

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     Another way to express that thought is to say that Marshall loved power and sought to obtain it.

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             "I mean, no one in South Africa thought about going to the courts as a means of redressing an injustice."

Led South Africa Protests
            In 1964, Marshall enrolled at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where she majored in art history and minored in protest. She was among those who drove relatives of black political prisoners to a remote jail. Seeing, for the first time, the gaping disparity between the way blacks and whites lived drew her deeper into the antiapartheid movement. In 1966, she became the first woman to head the 20,000-member National Union of South African Students. Her opportunity arose after her predecessor was banned by the government of Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster for inviting Robert F. Kennedy to address students. Marshall became the first student leader to meet Vorster.

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            I am perplexed how Marshall graduated from college two years after she entered in 1964, but I assume there was a typo and she entered in 1962. The 20,000 members of her movement also are suspect because most groups like that include anyone who ever telephoned the office.
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            The 22-year-old woman considered a subversive by her government put on a brave face, but her hand shook noticeably when she picked up a cup of tea in Vorster's office.
            Marshall was never arrested. She suspects her gender, or at least the government's paternalism, saved her. But she says she did not go out of her way to get arrested.

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            She “suspects” that her sex was a powerful benefit to her. Of course it was.
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            "What would that have proven?" she once asked.
             Her decision to move to the United States was tinged with a feeling that she was abandoning the movement. Her guilt was assuaged by a black friend who compared the struggle to being on a long train ride. Some people, he told her, get off to stretch their legs.

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     So she did feel guilt when she was young. But she quickly shrugged that off and looked out for herself.
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            Marshall came to Boston, studying at Harvard for a master's and later a doctorate in education. But she switched course and entered Yale Law School in 1973. Throughout those years, she was active in the campaign to have the US government impose economic sanctions on South Africa, and for US companies to divest their holdings there.

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     There certainly wasn’t any danger or hardship in that assignment.
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Always a “Maverick”
            Marshall sometimes clashed with other antiapartheid activists over tactics and strategy. Her critics suggest she too willingly allowed herself to become a marquee speaker while black South Africans were excluded or played second-fiddle to her at events sponsored by white Americans.
            Christopher Nteta, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said some activists thought Marshall "allowed herself to be a prima donna." Others were put off when Marshall was allowed to return home to see her dying father after she had been banned in exile. "Black exiles would never be allowed to do that," Nteta said.
            In 1978, in an episode that still rankles some apartheid opponents, Marshall agreed to take part in a program about apartheid on the PBS series "The Advocates." Many activists decided to boycott the program after representatives from the African National Congress were excluded from it.
            Nteta and Themba Vilakazi, the ANC representative in Boston, pleaded with Marshall to pull out. Nteta says Marshall was unmoved, telling them, "Look, I'm a maverick. I've always done things on my own."
            Just minutes before it was to be broadcast live nationwide from Faneuil Hall, the program was cancelled because two other participants refused to cross the ANC's picket line.
            Marshall's friends are not surprised by either the resentment some activists still harbor toward her or her willingness to stand alone in the face of such peer pressure. But they are less understanding of those who question whether, as a white woman of some pedigree and privilege, Marshall can represent the interests of the poor and minorities.
            Appeals Court Judge Frederick L. Brown, who applied for the SJC seat but was not one of the finalists, has been Marshall's most outspoken critic. He says his resume and those of other candidates were more impressive than hers. Brown called her nomination a "perverted joke," and said: "It is a regrettable day in the history of Massachusetts when a white person from South Africa is appointed to the SJC before any black person."

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            Even back then, the Globe quoted just a little bit of opposition in the middle of the story but always ended with a thundering quote from a liberal. But the clinching quote at the end of this story was ridiculous when it talked about Clarence Thomas. It was a non-sequitur. Nobody was talking about appointing Clarence Thomas to the Massachusetts court.
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            Those who know Marshall well are shocked by the aspersions cast by Brown and others. As the first black to head a university in South Africa, as the mother of the child of Steve Biko, the slain black liberation hero, and as a prominent member of the antiaparthied movement herself, Mamphela Ramphele's credentials are impressive. She was incredulous when asked to comment on the attacks on Marshall.
            "Margie was very courageous. Coming late to the political question and rising so quickly to the top of a movement is an indication of her character," said Ramphele. "I'm not surprised some people would disagree on strategy. Margie is not part of a herd. She wanted liberation in South Africa. The fact that she can make her own judgments, even in the face of such strong opposition, is an indication of her strength. As a judge, she will have to make careful judgments, not based on populist notions of what constitutes justice.
            "But this preoccupation with skin color is ridiculous. Ask your Judge Brown and all the others criticizing Margie, who would they rather have as a judge: Margaret Marshall or Clarence Thomas?"