Mary E. Taylor, Gorsuch, Justice Thomas and Public Education

Mary Elizabeth Taylor, remember that name, may be the most consequential player in Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation fight to become a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. She is an attractive, young African American woman who sits directly behind Judge Gorsuch, closer than his wife, Louise, which allows her to be seen continuously when he is on camera. During the hearing, Gorsuch frequently turned to look at Ms. Taylor although he has known her for less than three months. Sen. Charles Grassley, the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee Chairman, arranged for Ms. Taylor’s nonstop cameo appearances in order to give Gorsuch the look of being racially sensitive and diverse in his thinking and relationships.

She is the administration’s “trump card” in that it was hoped that her constant presence would humanize Gorsuch and distract Democratic senators and the broader public from a careful assessment of his destructive legal opinions: Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius in which he permitted the corporation to deny women access to contraceptives under their health insurance plans and TransAm Trucking v. Administrative Review Board where he was the only dissenting judge among seven who ruled for the black plaintiff, Alphonse Maddin, who was fired for refusing to stay in his broken down truck in 27 degree sub-zero weather. His employer refused to send help after he had waited three hours for assistance. Gorsuch’s lone dissent was viewed as wrong and inhumane.

Justice Clarence Thomas employed a similar strategy in 1991 when he accused the Judiciary Committee of conducting a “high-tech lynching” once allegations of sexual harassment by Atty. Anita Hill’s, his former staffer, surfaced during his Supreme Court confirmation review. In addition, Thomas had characterized his mother and sister as welfare queens and made numerous disparaging comments about the black community, in general, as he endeared himself to right-wing conservatives. His explosive charge was very effective as it rallied millions of black voters to support him, forcing several southern Democratic and Republican Senators to vote for him to join the Court. Black citizens, in a show of racial solidarity, disregarded Thomas’s conservative judicial and public record, believing that he would change once he joined the court with a lifetime appointment. He was approved by a 52-48 vote, and they have been proven to be mistaken.

Mary Elizabeth Taylor is serving the same purpose for Gorsuch. She is a former attendant in the Senate cloakroom (whose duties included alerting Senators to votes, working with Senate pages to send messages, checking Senators’ belongings, and assorted other low-level duties). Taylor was promoted to the nebulous title of legislative liaison after President Trump took office in order to increase the number of faces of color in his White House entourage. She was then given the position, deputy director of nominations, shortly after Trump chose Gorsuch for the Court, in order to add diversity to his portfolio and make it appear that a minority was involved in the selection process.

Taylor was a former staffer to Sen. Mitch McConnell, and she also interned at Koch Industries while an undergraduate. Thus, she had demonstrated that she is worthy to carry out this “minority-front role.” Ms. Taylor was prepped to “grin and smile” throughout the inquiry, but just in case she inadvertently deviated from her assigned nonverbal pose, Trump dispatched Michael McGinley, a White House lawyer, to sit beside her to provide “poise prompts” if needed. Ms. Taylor, a Bryn Mawr graduate with a degree in political science—but no law degree–was a curious choice, other than being African American, and supposedly shepherding Gorsuch through the nomination procedure.

If he is successful, Gorsuch will be the point person on undermining public education in America. His aggressive rulings in favor of corporations and religious freedom complement education secretary DeVos’s long-term push for school vouchers and corporate charter schools and her pursuit of “… education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom” and “… that school choice would lead to greater kingdom gain.” She viewed this as a way to remove schools from government accountability. Gorsuch also believes in limiting the ability of government to issue regulations for citizens and societal institutions and on laws passed by Congress as repeatedly reflected in his judicial rulings. His views parallel those of Secretary DeVos, who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to eliminate state- and federal-guidelines for accountability in public education.

Moreover, a Gorsuch decision from the 10th Circuit Federal Appeals Court that public schools were only required to provide no “…more than de minimis” services to students with disabilities was unanimously overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, March 22nd. DeVos echoed Gorsuch’s view on disabled students when she was grilled for her appointment as education secretary.

Mary Elizabeth Taylor will have been a major facilitator of Gorsuch’s elevation to the highest court in the land if he gets the necessary votes. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats are quietly negotiating with Republicans to support Gorsuch in exchange for a promise not to overturn the filibuster. They naively believe that Republicans will honor this agreement which they will not. Mitch McConnell has already flipped one Democratic vote for Gorsuch, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and he has several other tentative Democratic commitments despite the Democratic Minority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY), public statement that he would lead a filibuster. The Democratic base—unions, progressives, and minority voters—needs to demand that Democrats hold the line or face political retribution, a tactic used with great success by their Republican counterparts to keep their troops in line.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) has developed a twenty-page document that provides a solid rationale against school choice as the major threat to public education. It is imperative that the Democrats embrace it and vigorously oppose Gorsuch and force McConnell to resort to the nuclear option in order to get him ratified for the Court. If he does pursue this strategy, then Democrats should assemble their followers and leave no stone unturned to take back the House and Senate in 2018. This is their only choice if they are to survive as a viable opposition party. Striking a Faustian bargain with Republicans to back Gorsuch is political suicide. It will open the Court to even more extreme appointments in the future, turning back the clock on LGBT, voting, gender, and civil rights, and the sustainability of public education.