Anti-Affirmative Action and All About an All Male Dining Club

Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Oklahoma's Tulsa World had a thing or two to say about Jerome Holmes' nomination to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Leahy expressed "concerns about how Mr. Holmes might rule from the bench on civil rights issues," citing - among other things - Holmes' criticism of the Supreme Court's failure to "drive the final nail in the coffin of affirmative action." The Tulsa paper reported that Holmes was a member of the all male Dinner Club of Oklahoma City for about two years. Holmes remarked "I have been the subject of racial prejudice during my life and abhor prejudice in all its forms. I did not perceive the club as practicing invidious discrimination." Holmes resigned from the club in February, about the time Bush nominated him to the bench. If confirmed, Holmes would be the first African American to sit on the Tenth Circuit's Denver-based panel.