Judge that restored NIH grants after Trump order echoed famous McCarthy-era lawyer from Boston
McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, smeared people left and right, using innuendo instead of evidence, acting — as Erwin Griswold, a former Republican solicitor general and dean of Harvard Law School put it — as 'judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent, all in one.'
Welch was a partner at the Boston firm of Hale & Dorr and lived in Walpole. In the spring of 1954, McCarthy went after the Army, accusing it of lax security, leaving it open to communist infiltration. Welch took on McCarthy for the Army.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
For 30 days, Welch appeared before McCarthy's committee, making the Army's case, systematically showing that McCarthy's claims about the Army being soft on communism were unfounded.
Advertisement
Frustrated by Welch's ability to show the paucity of McCarthy's claims, McCarthy waved one of his distractions, asserting that Fred Fischer, a junior associate in Welch's law firm, while a student at Harvard Law School had been a member of the National Lawyers Guild, which McCarthy called the legal arm of the Communist Party.
This violated an agreement that Welch and Cohn had made before the hearings, that Welch would not bring up Cohn's ability to avoid the draft in the Korean War, and the committee would not bring up Fischer having been associated with a legal organization that represented accused communists while in law school.
Advertisement
Welch's response to McCarthy would go down in history as
'Until this moment, Senator,' Welch said, 'I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.'
When McCarthy tried to interrupt, Welch added this dagger: 'Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?'
Fast forward to another June, 71 years after Welch spoke those immortal lines, when US District Judge William G. Young, sitting in federal court in Boston,
On Monday, Young accused the Trump administration of discriminating against minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community and ordered the National Institutes of Health to restore hundreds of research grants that the Trump administration had dismissed as DEI-inspired 'woke' nonsense.
'I've sat on this bench now for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this,' Young said. 'Is it true of our society as a whole? Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?'
'Have we no shame' sounds an awful lot like, 'Have you no sense of decency?'
Young said the cuts to grants that funded research into racial disparities in health care were 'arbitrary and capricious,' that they were based not on reasoned policy, but on pure bias.
The White House fired back, accusing Young of being, well, biased.
Advertisement
'It is appalling that a federal judge would use court proceedings to express his political views and preferences,' White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. 'How is a judge going to deliver an impartial decision when he explicitly stated his biased opinion that the Administration's retraction of illegal DEI funding is racist and anti-LGBTQ?'
Casting Young as some lefty activist jurist is a stretch. Early in his career, he served as chief counsel to Massachusetts Governor Frank Sargent, a Republican. Young was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of modern conservatism.
Having watched Young in action for 40 years, I'd say he's biased mostly toward the Constitution.
Brittany Charlton, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and one of the plaintiffs that challenged the Trump administration's cuts, said the administration was accusing the judge of the very bias it showed in making the cuts in the first place.
She said Young's decision 'is an important step in protecting public health and allowing critical research to continue. Research that helps us understand and treat serious diseases should be based on science, not politics.'
In his ruling, Young made it clear that he believed the Trump administration's rationale for cutting research about racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people was unsupported by facts. Welch said the same thing about McCarthy's claims about the Army being soft on communists.
'This court finds and rules that the explanations are bereft of reasoning virtually in their entirety,' Young said. 'These edicts are nothing more than conclusory, unsupported by factual development.'
Young asked the Department of Justice attorney representing the Trump administration to explain how funding research related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion led to 'unlawful discrimination.'
Advertisement
'Where's the support for that? Any support? Any rational explanation?' Young said. 'I see no evidence of that. Point me to any particular grant or group of grants being used to support unlawful discrimination on the basis of race. From what I can see, it's the reverse.'
Young said the government was guilty of the very thing it claimed the research causes.
'I am hesitant to draw this conclusion, but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it, that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community,' Young said. 'That's what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.'
Like Welch, Young is a Harvard grad. Maybe the Trump administration can chalk all this up to Harvard's revenge.
Young's comments were not nationally televised, and they have not ignited the backlash against the Trump administration that Welch's remarks did against McCarthy.
Still, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Justice is inevitable. But it takes time.
Five years after dressing McCarthy down, Welch played a judge in Otto Preminger's film, 'Anatomy of a Murder.' His portrayal won him a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.
But his best performance was on June 9, 1954, when he exposed a bully for what he was, inspiring a nation to do the same.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
35 minutes ago
- Washington Post
POWs, abductees, defectors and separated families are the legacy of the Korean War
GIMPO, South Korea — Prisoners of war held for decades after the fighting stopped. Civilian abductees. Defectors. Separated families. They are Koreans who symbolize the decades of division and bitter animosities between North and South Korea, which have been split by a heavily fortified border since the the 1950-53 Korean War.
Hamilton Spectator
35 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Alvin Bragg, Manhattan prosecutor who took on Trump, wins Democratic primary in bid for second term
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor who oversaw the historic hush-money case against President Donald Trump, won Tuesday's Democratic primary as he seeks reelection. Bragg defeated Patrick Timmins — a litigator, law professor and former Bronx assistant district attorney — to advance to November's general election. About 70% of registered Manhattan voters are Democrats. The first-term incumbent will face Republican Maud Maron, who was a public defender for decades and previously ran for Congress and NYC's City Council as a Democrat. Bragg has long been one of the nation's most prominent prosecutors, spotlighted in TV's 'Law & Order' and other shows. The DA directs about 600 attorneys in one of the biggest local prosecutors' offices in the U.S. He raised the office's profile still further by bringing the hush-money case. His predecessor, fellow Democrat Cyrus R. Vance Jr., spent years investigating various Trump dealings but didn't procure an indictment . Bragg decided to focus on how and why porn actor Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to clam up about her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with the married Trump. The payment was made, through the then-candidate's personal attorney, weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Trump's company records logged the money as a legal expense. Trump denied any wrongdoing and any sexual involvement with Daniels. But a jury last year found him guilty of 33 felony counts of falsifying business records, the first-ever felony conviction of a former — and now again — U.S. commander in chief. Trump is appealing the verdict. The Republican president has long derided the case as a political 'witch hunt,' and he has kept lambasting Bragg by social media as recently as March. Bragg, 51, was a civil rights lawyer, federal prosecutor and top deputy to New York's attorney general before becoming DA. Raised in Harlem and educated at Harvard, he's the first Black person to hold the post. His tenure had a rocky start. Days after taking office in 2022, he issued a memo telling staffers not to prosecute some types of cases, nor seek bail or prison time in some others. After criticism from the police commissioner and others, Bragg apologized for creating 'confusion' and said his office wasn't easing up on serious cases. The matter continued to animate his critics. Trump repeatedly branded Bragg 'soft on crime,' and Timmins said on his campaign site homepage that the memo 'has brought about increased crime and a perception of chaos in the subway and on our streets.' Timmins — who has raised about $154,000 to Bragg's $2.2 million since January 2022 — also pledged to do more to staunch subway crime, keep cases from getting dismissed for failure to meet legal deadlines, and prioritize hate crimes, among other things. Bragg's campaign emphasized his efforts to fight gun violence, help sexual assault survivors, prosecute hate crimes and go after bad landlords and exploitative bosses, among other priorities. His office, meanwhile, has been enmeshed in a string of high-profile cases in recent months. The office is using a post-9/11 terrorism law to prosecute UnitedHealthcare CEO killing suspect Luigi Mangione , lost a homicide trial against Marine veteran and Republican cause célèbre Daniel Penny in a case that stirred debate about subway safety and self-defense, and retried former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on sex crimes charges. Mangione, Penny and Weinstein all pleaded not guilty. Bragg unexpectedly inherited the Vance-era Weinstein case after an appeals court ordered a new trial. In a jumbled outcome, jurors this month convicted Weinstein on one top charge, acquitted him of another and didn't reach a verdict on a third, lower-level charge — which Bragg aims to bring to trial a third time. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Associated Press
37 minutes ago
- Associated Press
POWs, abductees, defectors and separated families are the legacy of the Korean War
GIMPO, South Korea (AP) — Prisoners of war held for decades after the fighting stopped. Civilian abductees. Defectors. Separated families. They are Koreans who symbolize the decades of division and bitter animosities between North and South Korea, which have been split by a heavily fortified border since the the 1950-53 Korean War. Koreans aren't allowed to exchange visits, phone calls or letters with their loved ones on the other side. Wednesday is the 75th anniversary of the war's beginning. The Associated Press spoke with Koreans whose pain and sorrow likely won't be healed anytime soon as diplomacy between the Koreas remains dormant. South Korean prisoner of war isolated after his return home Lee Seon-wu, who was a South Korean soldier, lost three fingers and was captured by Chinese troops during a fierce battle in the eastern Gangwon province in the final days of the war. Like tens of thousands of other South Korean prisoners, Lee was held by North Korea even after a peace treaty ended the fighting. He was forced to resettle as a miner in the country's remote northeast. In North Korea, Lee said he belonged to the lowest social class and married a poor woman. He also lived under constant state surveillance. In 2006, he fled to South Korea via China, only to learn that his parents and two of his three siblings had already died. Lee said he was shunned by his nephew, who likely worried Lee would demand the return of land that was originally bought with compensation money that authorities gave to his family after they wrongly concluded that Lee had died in the war. Now 94, he doesn't stay in touch with any relatives in South Korea and misses family members in North Korea. Lee said his three daughters in North Korea rejected his offer to flee to South Korea because they feared punishment if caught. Lee said he also has a grandson whose parents — Lee's son and daughter-in-law — died in an accident. 'I'm happy because I've returned to my homeland but I shed tears when I think about them in North Korea,' Lee said during an interview at his home in Gimpo, a city near Seoul. A total of 80 South Korean POWs have fled to South Korea since 1994, but only seven of them including Lee are still alive. In 2016, the South Korean government estimated about 500 South Korean POWs were still alive in North Korea. North Korean daughter fights for her late South Korean POW dad Son Myong Hwa, 63, is the North Korea-born daughter of a South Korean POW held in the North. She said her father sang and played the harmonica well but often drank alone at home and wept. Son's father, who also worked as a miner in North Korea, died of lung cancer in 1984. Son said he left a will asking her to move his ashes to his South Korean hometown when the Koreas are unified. Son escaped to South Korea in 2005 and brought her father's remains to South Korea with the help of her brother and sister in North Korea in 2013. Her father's remains were eventually buried at the national cemetery. But Son said her demand for the government to give her father's compensation to her has gone unanswered because South Korean law only grants financial assistance to returning POWs, not their bereaved families. Son has been fighting legal battles to get what she thinks she deserves. She said she can't back down now because she has lost too many things. She said she learned that her brother and sister involved in the smuggling of their father's remains were later arrested by North Korean authorities and sent to a prison camp. The trouble has left Son estranged from her two other sisters who also resettled in South Korea. 'Why am I struggling like this? I harbor ill feeling against the South Korean government because I think they've abandoned POWs left in North Korea,' Son said. 'I think deceased POWs also have honors to be respected so their compensation must be provided posthumously.' South Korean son flies balloons for his father abducted to North In 1967, when Choi Sung-Yong was 15, his father was abducted by North Korean agents, whose armed vessels encircled his fishing boat near the Koreas' disputed western sea boundary. Choi said that South Korean officials and a North Korean defector told him that his father was executed in the early 1970s after North Korean interrogators uncovered his wartime service for a U.S. intelligence military unit. Choi said his family still doesn't hold an annual traditional memorial service for his father because they don't know exactly when he died. He said before his mother died in 2005, she asked him to bring his father's remains and bury them alongside hers in the future. Now, as head of a civic group representing families of people kidnapped by North Korea, Choi flies balloons across the border to drop leaflets demanding that North Korea confirm the fates of his father and others. 'I want to hear directly from North Korea about my father,' Choi said. The South Korean government estimates more than 500 South Korean kidnap victims, mostly fishermen, are still held in North Korea. Choi faces police investigations after the new liberal South Korean government cracked down on civilian leafleting campaigns to ease tensions with North Korea. Choi said Tuesday that senior South Korean officials told him they would strive to resolve the abduction issue as they asked him to halt balloon activities that it views as a major provocation. 'Our government has failed to fulfill their duties to find the fate of my father. So I've sent leaflets. But why do South Korean authorities try to punish me?' Choi said. 'Criminals are in North Korea.' South Korean hoping to meet his North Korean half-siblings When Kang Min-do's family gathered for major traditional holidays, he said his North Korea-born father often wept quietly when he honored the two other children he lost during the chaos of the Korean War. Kang, who was born to a woman his father remarried in South Korea, said his father told him bombings, likely from U.S. warplanes, scattered his family somewhere near Pyongyang in January 1951 as they were fleeing to South Korea. 'My father said he tried to search for them after the bombing ended, but bodies were piled so high and he just couldn't find anyone,' Kang, 67, said. Before he died in 1992, Kang's father hoped that his son would find his half-siblings one day to tell them how much their father missed them. In a video message posted on a South Korean government website, Kang expressed hopes of visiting his father's grave with his half-brother and half-sister when the Koreas are united. 'I need to tell them how much our father struggled after coming to the South and how deeply he missed his older son and daughter,' Kang said.
