In this edition of Forthright Radio our guest is retired Federal Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, David S. Tatel. After many years as a civil rights attorney in private practice and public service, he was nominated by President Bill Clinton in June of 1994 to the seat vacated by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she ascended to the Supreme Court. After only a one hour hearing and unanimous vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was confirmed by the full Senate in a voice vote. In the 1970s, he was the founding Director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and then director of the national Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. During the Carter Administration, he served as the Director of the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. By that time, he was fully blind, after the gradually progressing deterioration of his vision due to the genetic condition, retinitis pigmentosa.
His book, VISION: A MEMOIR OF BLINDNESS AND JUSTICE, was published by Little, Brown and Company in June of 2024. It’s the story of one individual’s journey in the service of justice through many historical moments – from John F. Kennedy, who inspired him to the nobility of public service, through the Donald J. Trump’s administration’s harangues against “The Deep State” and the mockery of the very idea of service, to his decision to retire from the bench during the Biden administration, so as not to repeat the strategically tragic decision of his friend, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, not to retire. As you will hear in this interview, the lack of judicial restraint by the Republican appointees of the current Supreme Court, and their ideological overturning of well established precedents in civil rights and environmental cases contributed to his decision to retire when he did from that position he loved.
But it’s not just a memoir of his legal experiences or philosophy. It’s a very human love story – for his wife of almost 60 years, his four children, and most recently, his guide dog, Vixen, as well as a memoir of his blindness, vulnerability, and rising above disability to his decades of public service.
We spoke with Judge Tatel via Skype from his home in rural Virginia on August 19, 2024.
Forthright Radio 