John Payton, a lawyer who argued bias cases before Supreme Court, dies at 65 - Washington Post

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John Payton, a lawyer who argued bias cases before Supreme Court, dies at 65Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By T. Rees Shapiro, The Washington Post

John Payton, a lawyer and civil rights advocate who argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court involving discrimination in the workplace and the rights of universities to include race as a factor in admissions, died March 22 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 65.

He had complications from multiple myeloma, said his wife, Gay McDougall, a civil and human rights activist.

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Personal Post(Alex Brandon/ASSOCIATED PRESS) - NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President and Director-Counsel John Payton died March 22 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 65.

At his death, Mr. Payton was president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, a civil rights legal organization.

Mr. Payton’s appointment to the fund in 2008 capped a five-decade career devoted to the protection of minorities. During the early 1990s, he was the District’s corporation counsel, or chief legal officer. The position is now called the D.C. attorney general.

In a statement, President Obama called Mr. Payton “a true champion of equality” who will be remembered for his “courage and fierce opposition to discrimination in all its forms.”

While a student at Pomona College in the 1960s, Mr. Payton helped establish the California school’s first black student association. He also successfully lobbied Pomona’s parent institution, the Claremont Colleges consortium, for the creation of a black studies program.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1977, he clerked for a year for Judge Cecil F. Poole of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, before joining the D.C. law firm Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering.

He contributed to the firm’s representation of the NAACP in various legal matters. In a 1982 case before the U.S. Supreme Court, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., he helped the civil rights organization avoid paying a financial penalty after organizing a 1960s boycott against white merchants in Mississippi.

In 1988, Mr. Payton represented the city of Richmond in a Supreme Court case involving a city program in which 30 percent of municipal construction jobs had to be given to minority-owned businesses. The court ruled that Richmond’s law was unconstitutional because it violated white-owned construction firms’ right to equal protection.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Payton served as the lead counsel for the University of Michigan in two
cases involving its use of race in admissions. One concerned admissions at the undergraduate level and the other at the law school.

The cases were split once they reached the Supreme Court. Mr. Payton led the defense in Gratz v. Bollinger, the 2003 case involving the undergraduate admission policy.

The Supreme Court upheld the law school’s affirmative action process — in which applicants received a more individualized review — and rejected Mr. Payton’s defense of the undergraduate policies, which utilized a point system that was considered unfair by its opponents.

In 2008, Mr. Payton left Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering — now known as WilmerHale — to lead the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Mr. Payton successfully represented a group of black firefighters in a Supreme Court case against the city of Chicago. In that case, the city’s fire department had used test scores for hiring purposes. Because of the way the test was graded, no black applicants had qualified. The court found that the city had discriminated against the black recruits by not using a different system for grading the tests.

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John Payton, top civil rights lawyer, dies at 65

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
NEW YORK (AP) — Civil rights lawyer John Payton, who defended the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy before the Supreme Court and led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has died. He was 65.

Payton died Thursday at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore after a brief illness, said Lee Daniels, spokesman for the New York-based NAACP fund.

President Barack Obama said in a prepared statement that he and first lady Michelle Obama were saddened to learn that their "dear friend" had died.

He was a "true champion of equality," Obama said. "The legal community has lost a legend, and while we mourn John's passing, we will never forget his courage and fierce opposition to discrimination in all its forms."

After graduating from Pomona College in California, Payton went to Harvard Law School and joined the Washington firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in 1978.

He argued affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court, including 2003's Gratz vs. Bollinger, which involved the admissions policies at the University of Michigan.

The court ruled 6-3 against the university in Gratz, but in a companion case, Grutter vs. Bollinger, the court ruled 5-4 that the law school's race-conscious admissions policy did not amount to a quota system.

Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said Payton's work on Gratz and Grutter showed his long-range strategic thinking.

"He really sat back and said, 'What is it that the court needs to understand about racial diversity in America?'" Arnwine said. 'What are the consequences of a non-diverse society?'"

Payton left private practice in the early 1990s to become corporation counsel for the District of Columbia. In 1994 he joined his wife, Gay McDougall, in South Africa, where McDougall was a member of the commission running the country's first democratic elections.

He returned to Wilmer Hale, then became director-counsel and president of the legal defense and educational fund in 2008.

While at the fund in 2010, Payton argued Lewis vs. City of Chicago, in which the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that a group of African-American would-be firefighters had filed a timely charge of race discrimination.

The National Law Journal named Payton to its list of the decade's most influential lawyers in 2010.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement that Payton "was a warrior for justice and equality."

"He was arguably a 21st-century Thurgood Marshall," Henderson said. "The highest compliment I could pay him as an advocate is that he could run with the foxes and he could run with the hounds."

Survivors include his wife, also a notable civil rights attorney.

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John Payton, top civil rights lawyer, dies at 65 - Wall Street Journal

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

NEW YORK — Civil rights lawyer John Payton, who defended the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy before the Supreme Court and led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has died. He was 65.

Payton died Thursday at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore after a brief illness, said Lee Daniels, spokesman for the New York-based NAACP fund.

President Barack Obama said in a prepared statement that he and first lady Michelle Obama were saddened to learn that their "dear friend" had died.

He was a "true champion of equality," Obama said. "The legal community has lost a legend, and while we mourn John's passing, we will never forget his courage and fierce opposition to discrimination in all its forms."

After graduating from Pomona College in California, Payton went to Harvard Law School and joined the Washington firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in 1978.

He argued affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court, including 2003's Gratz vs. Bollinger, which involved the admissions policies at the University of Michigan.

The court ruled 6-3 against the university in Gratz, but in a companion case, Grutter vs. Bollinger, the court ruled 5-4 that the law school's race-conscious admissions policy did not amount to a quota system.

Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said Payton's work on Gratz and Grutter showed his long-range strategic thinking.

"He really sat back and said, 'What is it that the court needs to understand about racial diversity in America?'" Arnwine said. 'What are the consequences of a non-diverse society?'"

Payton left private practice in the early 1990s to become corporation counsel for the District of Columbia. In 1994 he joined his wife, Gay McDougall, in South Africa, where McDougall was a member of the commission running the country's first democratic elections.

He returned to Wilmer Hale, then became director-counsel and president of the legal defense and educational fund in 2008.

While at the fund in 2010, Payton argued Lewis vs. City of Chicago, in which the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that a group of African-American would-be firefighters had filed a timely charge of race discrimination.

The National Law Journal named Payton to its list of the decade's most influential lawyers in 2010.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement that Payton "was a warrior for justice and equality."

"He was arguably a 21st-century Thurgood Marshall," Henderson said. "The highest compliment I could pay him as an advocate is that he could run with the foxes and he could run with the hounds."

Survivors include his wife, also a notable civil rights attorney.

—Copyright 2012 Associated Press

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