Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. Cook, a case that centers on President Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve board. Cook challenged her attempted dismissal last year, and, in September, a lower court issued a ruling requiring the Federal Reserve to allow Cook to remain in her position while her challenge moved forward.
Ahead of oral arguments, LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai S. Nelson issued the following statement.
“Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook is another in a line of blatant attacks on Black women in positions of power with whom Trump disagrees or would like to intimidate. It is also a brazen power grab to control an independent Fed Board member who refused to bend to his demands to lower interest rates. In disgrace to the office he holds, Trump is abusing executive powers to compromise the independence of the Fed – a sacred principle that underpins our global economy – and undermining the rule of law.
“This is not an isolated incident. Over the course of his first year in office, Trump has repeatedly fired prominent Black officials serving in high-profile positions, including C.Q. Brown, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, Gwynne Wilcox, Chair of the National Labor Relations Board, and Charlotte Burrows, Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what this is: the deliberate and unlawful targeting of Black officials. The Supreme Court must put a stop to this egregious discrimination and uphold the lower court’s decision to allow Cook to remain in her position while her lawsuit in defense of her job continues.”
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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation’s first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF’s archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.
