Description:
The “Jewish Seat” on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, which had been occupied by Justices Brandeis, Cardozo and Frankfurter, was after the tatter's retirement in 1962 offered to Arthur Joseph Goldberg. He was not the only Jewish candidate whom President Kennedy considered for nomination: the other was Paul Freund, Frankfurter's successor on the faculty of Harvard Law School and his intimate friend. Opinions were divided whether Freund's candidature was eliminated because of Goldberg's superior merit, or because the President nourished a grudge against him for having twice refused appointment as solicitor-general, or perhaps because there were already two many Harvard men in high office — a fact which had aroused criticism in some quarters. Goldberg had, for about one year, been Secretary of Labor in Kennedy's cabinet: though his actual successes in ameliorating strike-ridden labor relations were (to say the least) doubtful, the President and his aides at any rate had ample opportunity to acquaint themselves with his personal and professional qualities; and if an assumption of mutuality is in order, Goldberg on his part admired and revered the President well nigh unreservedly. Goldberg's reputation also outside the White House must have been well established: he was the only Jewish candidate for the Supreme Court whose nomination was unopposed and approved after a perfunctory hearing. The opposition to previous Jewish nominations, even to that of Cardozo who was otherwise uncontested, had always had antisemitic undertones which were absent (or suppressed) in Goldberg's case. It was suggested that had Kennedy survived there might have been yet another Jewish appointment to the Supreme Court: not so much because being himself the first Catholic to be elected President, he was particularly sensitive to religious discrimination, as because of his celebrated meritocracy, determined to recruit the best man available for every office.