Gavel Grab

A Wall Street Journal editorial  critical of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., a nominee for the federal bench, has itself drawn censure for its headline labeling the African American jurist as “the White House Butler.”

The strongest criticism came from Madison attorney Jon Axelrod, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He requested a retraction and apology and stated:

“Not only do I strongly disagree with the contents of the editorial as deliberately misleading, but it is totally inappropriate to demean Judge Butler because of his race by comparing him to a butler, an occupation unfortunately stereotyped as predominantly African-American…You owe this distinguished Wisconsin jurist an immediate retraction tomorrow as well as an apology.”

Others, too, were critical of the newspaper. The headline “harkens back to an antiquated stereotype,” said state Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, and former Wisconsin Chief Justice William Bablitch said, “At the very least, it’s highly insensitive….At the worst, it’s racist.”

The Journal Sentinel quoted a statement from Wall Street Journal spokeswoman Ashley Huston as saying, “The headline was a play off of his last name, and to suggest anything otherwise is absurd.”

On Thursday,  in a Gavel Grab commentary responding to several aspects of the Journal editorial, Justice at Stake executive director Bert Brandenburg had questioned the headline as “very curious.” Brandenburg added,  “Invoking antebellum stereotypes of black servitude is a pretty far cry from merit in anyone’s book.”

Former Justice Butler twice sustained statewide election defeats for the state

Supreme Court, in 2000 and in 2008; he was named to that court by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle in 2004. Last year’s highly politicized campaign led to a Supreme Court seat for Justice Michael Gableman, who subsequently faced an ethics complaint by the state Judicial Commission over a TV ad that attacked then-Justice Butler.

You may learn more about the Gableman-Butler contest and its aftermath in these Gavel Grab posts, and about diversity of the courts from Justice at Stake’s diversity page.