“These ideas that he pronounced yesterday are racist in application,” Harry Reid said. | Getty Dems slam Scalia over affirmative action comments

Top Democratic leaders are condemning Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for saying "there are those who contend" that black students might do better at “slower track” schools during court proceedings on an affirmative action case.

Harry Reid said Thursday morning that Scalia had "endorsed" racist ideas while a leading African-American lawmaker said Scalia should recuse himself from the case.


“Justice Scalia’s comments were disgusting, inaccurate, and insulting to African Americans, and his statements undervalue the historic achievements we have made,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Butterfield also said the Judicial Conference of the United States should consider removing Scalia from the bench.

Reid, the Senate minority leader, speaking earlier on the Senate floor, quoted Scalia's comments from Wednesday's court session before offering a blistering response.

“These ideas that he pronounced yesterday are racist in application,” Reid (D-Nev.) said. “It is deeply disturbing to hear a Supreme Court justice endorse racist ideas from the bench on the nation’s highest court.”

As he relayed Scalia's remarks, Reid used the word “racist” four times.

While the court was hearing a case regarding affirmative action at the University of Texas, Scalia said that some people “contend it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a slower-track school, where they do well.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) similarly condemned Scalia's remarks on Thursday.

“It’s such an indication of the lack of appreciation for the people of our country," she told reporters. "It is indicative of why they make the decisions they do but it has no place on the court or in our country.”

And John Lewis, a civil rights leader, said Scalia’s comments remind him of the kinds of justifications politicians used to segregate schools in the 1950s.

“His suggestion that African Americans would fare better at schools that are "less advanced" or on a "slow-track" remind me of the kind of prejudice that led to separate and unequal school systems--a policy the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional decades ago,” Lewis said in a statement.

Reid also unsubtly pointed out that former President Ronald Reagan nominated Scalia to the bench. Reid then sought to tie Scalia to Donald Trump’s plan to bar Muslims from the United States.

“The top two Republican leaders … in the United States have said they will support Donald Trump if he’s nominated. And now we have a Republican-appointed Supreme Court justice saying racist things from the bench,” Reid said. “Ideas like this don’t belong in the Internet, let alone the mouths of national figures.”

