Politico Editor Peter Canellos Explores The Moral Formation Of An American Hero For Equality

This article was originally published on Religion Unplugged on January 21, 2022.

John Marshall Harlan. Photo via Mathew Brady or Levin Handy — Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

(REVIEW) When former President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed John Marshall Harlan to the Supreme Court in 1877, anti-slavery Republicans mistrusted him, calling him “the sycophantic friend and suppliant tool” of White supremacists. Harlan had been born into a slaveholding family in 1833, and he was the lone Southerner on the court. 

To the surprise of his critics, Justice Harlan turned out to be the sole defender of civil rights in a series of Supreme Court cases that sharply limited the scope of the civil rights of Black Americans. Today, we read Harlan’s dissents as authoritative interpretations of the Constitution, and we repudiate the racist logic of many of the decisions of Harlan’s judicial contemporaries. How did Harlan get so much right at a time when his colleagues were getting so much wrong? 

At an online book talk organized by the King’s College in New York, Politico editor Peter Canellos said that his interest in the life of John Marshall Harlan was a “search for the roots of wisdom in the law.” 

“What makes Harlan wise in the estimation of history?” Canellos asked. “What made his colleagues unwise?” 

Peter Canellos

Canellos has a law degree from Columbia University, and he covered the nominations of Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court for The Boston Globe. His legal and journalistic training have equipped him to write “The Great Dissenter,” an engaging, popular and accessible book on Harlan and his jurisprudence. 

Canellos said that Harlan’s distinctive value system lay behind the differences between Harlan and his colleagues on the court. Harlan was a deeply religious man who served as an elder in the Presbyterian church, and he brought to his work a conviction that he was tasked with doing God’s will on Earth. He was not afraid to stand as a lone dissenter in cases to which he perceived his colleagues to be morally blind. In a letter to Harlan, Frederick Douglass wrote, “One man with God is a majority.”

A second source of Harlan’s moral courage was his commitment to the ideals of the Founding Fathers. American democracy was a great experiment in a world full of monarchs and authoritarians. He felt the wisdom of the Founding Fathers akin to a secular religion. He believed that a court that lived up to the spirit of America’s founding documents would ensure that all people who lived under the American flag were treated equally before the law. 

A third source of Harlan’s morality was his personal experience. He grew up in a family steeped in reverence for the law. He was the son of a prominent Kentucky lawyer and politician, and his father groomed him early in life to follow in his footsteps. John had a probable Black half-brother, Robert Harlan, whom his father brought up as a member of the family. In the face of Promethean odds, Robert thrived as a businessman, entrepreneur, politician and philanthropist. John’s relationship with Robert inoculated John from internalizing prevailing cultural concepts of Black inferiority. 

The Great Dissenter

Peter Canelloss, “The Great Dissenter,” Simon and Schuster, 2021.

In the civil rights cases of 1883, Harlan broke with his colleagues when the court ruled that the 14th Amendment applied only to the actions of state governments. In his dissenting opinion, Harlan argued that business owners who perform public functions should be subject to Congress’ power to enforce the 14th Amendment.

Harlan wrote his dissenting opinion using the inkwell with which former Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) — a case that Harlan considered to be America’s original judicial sin. It appalled Harlan that the same court that upheld Congress’ power to force private individuals to turn over runaway slaves in Dred Scot would now deny Congress’ power to prevent racial discrimination against freed men and women in places of public accommodation.  

In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), eight Supreme Court justices set up the legal structure for Jim Crow by upholding a Louisiana law that mandated separate railroad cars for Black customers. In his dissent, Harlan wrote, “In the eyes of the law, there is no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens in this country. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color blind and does not know or tolerate classes among its citizens.”  

Peter Canelloss, “The Great Dissenter,” Simon and Schuster, 2021.

In 1906, Harlan intervened in the case of Ed Johnson, a Black man from Kentucky who was convicted of raping a White woman at night in a cemetery even though the victim testified that she wasn’t sure her assailant was Black. Harlan ordered a stay of Johnson’s execution.

A White mob responded to Harlan’s ruling by descending on Chattanooga’s jail and dragging Johnson from his cell. The mob murdered Johnson and pinned a note to his dead body, saying, “To Chief Harlan, Here is your Negro.” Harlan convinced his fellow justices to try for contempt local court officials in Chattanooga who failed to protect Johnson. This resulted in the first and only time in history that the Supreme Court functioned as a criminal trial court. 

At the height of the Gilded Age, Harlan continued his dissents. He defended legislative efforts to break up corporate monopolies, institute an income tax and protect children and other exploited workers. Harlan’s colleagues on the court were corporate lawyers whose commitment to economic freedom precluded government intervention to protect labor rights. 

In the 1901 cases on the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish-American War, Harlan sought to extend full legal protections to people of newly acquired territories in Hawaii, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. He warned that the court must not treat people who live under the American flag as “subjects” or “dependent peoples” lest it “engraft on our republican institutions a colonial system … abhorrent to the principles that underlie and pervade our Constitution.” 

In Berea v. Kentucky (1908), Harlan issued one of his most anguished dissents. An abolitionist preacher had founded Berea College in 1855 to educate Black and White men and women side-by-side, in a state of biblical unity. In 1904, the Kentucky legislature passed a bill to prohibit Black and White students from attending the same institution, public or private. Berea College challenged the law, arguing that it violated its property rights and constitutional liberties. 

The Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s prohibition as a reasonable application of the state’s police powers, citing the state’s interest in preventing racial commingling. Harlan’s dissent rang with righteous indignation. “The capacity to impart instruction to others is given by the Almighty for beneficent purposes, and its use may not be forbidden or interfered with by government,” Harlan wrote. “The right to impart instruction ... is beyond question part of one’s liberty as guaranteed … by the Constitution of the United States.”

Robert Harlan

Robert Harlan was probably the most important influence of John’s views on racial equality. Robert was 16 years older than John. In John’s eyes, Robert loomed as a fearless man of action. Robert’s refined cultural interests and entrepreneurial successes shaped John’s perceptions of what Black Americans could achieve in an atmosphere of freedom. 

Because he was African American, Robert was prevented from pursuing a formal education. Instead, he had to navigate from a young age the rough and tumble rituals of frontier life. At various times in his life, Robert succeeded as a horse racing impresario, a gold rush entrepreneur, a financier of Black businesses, a world traveler and an elected member of the Ohio House of Representatives. 

Robert opened a store in San Francisco during the California gold rush, and he returned to Kentucky with a fortune, which he invested in businesses in the free state of Ohio. Robert helped finance the first public school for Black children sanctioned by the Cincinnati school board. He also held the lease on the Duma House, a hotel that was the “beating heart of the Cincinnati Black community, honeycombed with hiding places for runaway slaves.” When John Harlan was nominated to the Supreme Court, Robert helped galvanize Republican support for his appointment. 

With his large house, fashionable clothing and biracial heritage, Robert became a representative of America’s aristocrats of color. When traveling, Robert and his influential Black friends — such as Frederick Douglass, Louisiana Governor P.B.S. Pinchback and Howard Law School founder John Mercer Langston — would stay in one another’s homes and host lavish dinners. Robert raised his children in a world of cosmopolitan sophistication, community service, political activism and appreciation for the arts. As John was resisting the legal threats to Black rights on the high court, Robert was fighting in the Ohio legislature to protect Black Americans’ access to inns, restaurants and public transportation. The New York World stated that Robert’s influence in Black America rivaled that of Douglass. 

During his lifetime, John Harlan was dismissed by many White Americans as an eccentric outlier. However, Black Americans responded enthusiastically to the justice whom they considered to be their sole ally on the Supreme Court. When Harlan died in 1911, Black congregations around the country organized spontaneous memorial services. The massive Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington hosted a multi-faith service in which Harlan’s Plessy dissent was read aloud.

“When the spirit of John Marshall Harlan left its temple of clay last Saturday morning, a great light went out,” proclaimed the Washington Bee. “An entire race, today, is weeping because ... a friend has been taken from us. ... Now that he has gone, we cannot help but tramble, and fear that no one after him may dissent against decisions against our race.”

In the 1950s, the NAACP found in Harlan’s Plessy dissent the legal basis to overturn segregation. Constance Baker Motley, who clerked for Thurgood Marshall, recalled, “Marshall would read aloud passages from Harlan’s amazing dissent. I don’t believe we ever filed a brief in which a portion of that opinion was not quoted.”

When Justice Marshall died in 1993, Judge Motley wrote, “Marshall admired the courage of Harlan more than any justice who has ever sat on the Supreme Court. Even Chief Justice Warren’s forthright and moving decision for the court in (Brown v. Board of Education) did not affect Marshall in the same way. Earl Warren was writing for a unanimous Supreme Court. Harlan was a solitary and lonely figure writing for posterity.”

Robert Carle is a professor at the King’s College in Manhattan. Dr. Carle has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The American Interest, Religion Unplugged, Newsday, Society, Human Rights Review, Academic Questions, and Reason. Some of the material in this essay was published in The Public Discourse on July 13, 2021.

King's Alumna Talks About Her Path To EuroNews, Columbia University And Forbes

Anastassia Gliadkovskaya came to The King’s College in New York City as a 17-year-old from California with a background in performance classical piano and a burgeoning career in fashion modeling. Very quickly at King’s, she started gravitating to journalism classes, reporting for The Empire State Tribune and pursuing training and internships from The Daily Dot in New York to EuroNews in France to the European Journalism Institute in Prague. She worked for Prof. Paul Glader and Dr. David Tubbs as a faculty assistant. Her tireless work ethic led her to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied investigative reporting, and now is continuing her reporting career. She took a pause from reporting to answer questions from Prof. Glader.

Q: Tell us about your current role at Forbes magazine and what you are doing there?

A: I’m a reporting intern on the wealth team at Forbes, covering billionaires. My primary role is to help put together the World’s Billionaires issue, which comes out this spring. I help value the net worth of the billionaires on our list (possibly close to 2,700 this year!), and I also write about billionaires who are doing something unique or interesting.

Q: You put the time in with internships during your time at King’s. Tell us about that process and how internships helped you develop as a journalist. And how did the MPJI team help facilitate some of those internships?

A: Getting newsroom experience early is fundamental to getting ahead in the industry. Every employer looks for three things — newsroom experience, clips and the ability to find unique stories. Without the foundational internships in undergrad, I would be having a much more difficult time landing prestigious positions. Internships varied, but they ultimately all taught me to always think quickly and commit myself fully to what I was doing, even if I was afraid or uncertain. I’m lucky MPJI strongly encouraged me to apply for every right opportunity that presented itself. I was able to figure out what I like and don’t like early on, and what my strengths and weaknesses are.

Q: After college at King’s, you applied to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, were you were accepted and completed a Master’s in journalism. Prof. Lisi and I were glad to see that as we are fellow Columbia alums. Tell us about some of the key skills and knowledge you gained at Columbia.

A: Some of the most memorable teachings to me have got to be ethics and information warfare reporting. My ethics class challenged me to consider scenarios both hypothetical and real that called for difficult decisions. Would I publish if I got my information this way? Would I approach a source, given x circumstance? Would I have done what that reporter did? In class we debated, considered and justified. We heard every argument for and against. Not every student had the same answer — and that was the point. We had to dig deep into ourselves to understand where we each wanted to draw lines, morally. It was a critical class for establishing my own standards and defining what kind of reporter I want to be. Information warfare reporting was a class I chose to take, but strongly believe every student should be required to. In it, we learned about the dynamics of platforms and ads, how to investigate them and the dangers of amplification. In a time when we are all vulnerable to bad actors and disinformation online, it is more important than ever to study the ecosystems in which they thrive and the myriad ways they find to take advantage.

Q: You studied at the Stabile center at Columbia, which focuses on investigative reporting. What are some key software, apps, skillsets you think are really helpful to young journalist today especially if they want to do investigative reporting?

A: In terms of investigative reporting, the first outlet and resource that comes to mind is Bellingcat. I see it as the holy grail of modern investigative and digital forensics reporting. In addition to incredible longform reporting, like this, Bellingcat offers everything from guides to case studies to newsletters to webinars. Bellingcat reporters rely on OSINT — open source intelligence — to conduct their investigations. What that means is they don’t just rely on people as sources, but also on publicly available data. On that note, I highly recommend Craig Silverman’s Verification Handbook, which you can find for free online. It’s as close to a comprehensive course on information warfare reporting as you can get. In general, knowing how to work with complex datasets is critical to investigative reporting. Taking a course on advanced Excel at Columbia propelled my work to another level — I strongly suggest taking a course on at least Excel, but also on R or SQL if you want to really get into data reporting. I am attending the NICAR conference this year, led by IRE, which is quite affordable since it’s online this year — keep an eye on this annual conference! IRE’s annual conference is great, too, but less focused on the data reporting aspect. IRE membership is a huge plus to have, and IRE also features fantastic resources on its website. Also, sign up for LinkedIn Premium — journalists qualify for a free version. It is my favorite hack for finding and connecting with sources.

Q: You graduated last May (2020) right? Into a tough Coronavirus-affected market. What has been your strategy to keep reporting and moving forward in your career?

A: I graduated last May, online. Columbia’s career fair got short-squeezed because of the pandemic, and it was clear that the job market would not be forgiving in 2020. But thanks to how much reporting I got to do at Columbia and King's, I felt comfortable freelancing if I had to. I was lucky to land a reporting fellowship during the summer through a program Columbia sponsored last-minute for graduates, but after that ended in August I freelanced for the rest of the year. The key to keep moving forward is to not think of reporting as the only thing that will strengthen your skills and qualifications. Reporters have tons of assets — copy editing, fact-checking, content writing, researching, filing records requests. There’s a job market out there for all of those, and we can definitely work those gigs to pay the bills if needed. So many reporters in the field have a side gig — and it typically pays much more than reporting does! I think one of the biggest misconceptions I overcame after graduating was that if I wasn’t reporting, I was failing. That’s just not the case. And as a freelancer, I had time to pursue longer investigations that I really cared about. My biggest advice would be to take every opportunity that presents itself and put yourself out there. Join Study Hall — an incredible network of freelancers that offers everything from a Slack chat to pitch guides to a database of editors’ emails. Be active on Twitter and network. Help promote other reporters’ work. DM editors with your questions and pitches. These things have not only kept me preoccupied during this turbulent time but also have helped me progress.

Q: Was there a pivotal moment for you when you realized you were all in on journalism as a calling or career?

A: My sophomore year, several King’s students including myself had taken a trip with you, Paul, to Washington, D.C., for a journalism conference. There, we got to hear Edward Snowden speak via video call. It was a once in a lifetime experience. I’ll never forget the things he said, how he encouraged us in our fight for the truth and for exposing corruption. I felt so alive and invigorated, I knew this was what I am meant to be doing.

Q: What would you tell high school or college students who want to be journalists regarding the importance of studying in NYC?

A: I realize it’s a privilege to study and live in New York City, and that not everyone can do so. But for me, it was the reason I got into this business, so I owe a lot to the city. Here, you're surrounded by the biggest and most important hallmarks in the world. I remember waiting in line in the dark, waking hours of a chilly fall morning to attend Good Morning America in Times Square. I remember touring the New York Stock Exchange, the Museum of American Finance, The Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, Vice. Few things can inspire a budding reporter like getting to walk inside some of the most exciting halls of our time. And learning to report in a place like NYC will make you a more dogged and patient reporter. You’ll be running around the city figuring out the subway system, hauling equipment and trying to convince strangers to talk to you, and that’s just your typical Monday morning. But that’s what will make you better as a person and more competitive as a reporter. You’ll prove yourself, and you will be rewarded; having lived here for several years, I have established many connections that I trust will go a long way to support my career. If you can be anywhere, this is the place.

Q: What else would you like to tell friends of MPJI and future students at our various programs?

A: Reach out to other reporters and editors. Ask questions. Apply again for jobs when you get turned down. Always be thinking about ways to tell unique stories and always propose new ideas! Figure out what you like and hone that niche. If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out!

Q: How did your time at TKC help you find your path in journalism?

A: I am so grateful that I ended up at a small school like TKC and that it had such a thriving journalism program. I realize that had I gone to a giant undergrad school, I would have been paid much less attention to by professors and mentors. It would have also been more difficult to get involved on campus, and there would have been more bureaucracy to push through to implement change or to experiment with, say, the campus paper’s content. Naturally, with such a small set of students, TKC is able to closely monitor and mold its students’ progress, when it wants to. I think the journalism program is a brilliant example of that. I never felt forgotten or unimportant thanks to the individualized mentoring and encouragement I received from professors and older students alike. Both the big things, like internship recommendations, and the seemingly smaller things, like resume workshops, were of key importance. You can’t succeed in the industry if you aren’t prepared, and you can’t succeed in college if you don’t have guidance. My consistent excitement about reporting and confidence in my own abilities was nurtured because of both.

MPJI is based at The King’s College in New York City. MPJI provides education, training and professional development projects for journalists at the high school, undergraduate and professional levels. It is named after the late John McCandlish Phillips, a legendary reporter at The New York Times.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @JMPjournalism and LinkedIn at McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute.

Jerry Mitchell: A Race Against Time

Jerry Mitchell’s memoir was published earlier this year by Simon and Schuster. In "Race Against Time", he recounts the investigation that reopened four notorious “cold cases” of the Civil Rights Movement. Mitchell’s work as an investigative reporter helped to send four Klansmen to prison decades after these crimes took place. His lecture at The King’s College coincides with the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, giving black men the right to vote.

Jerry Mitchell's memoir was published earlier this year by Simon and Schuster. In "Race Against Time", he recounts the investigation that reopened four notor...

Q & A with Alumna and New York Time's Fellow Reporter Sydney Franklin

By Paul Glader

Sydney Franklin is a reporter covering design, architecture and real estate in the fellowship program at The New York Times this year. Earlier in her career, she attended Milligan College in Tennessee, which is a partner school to the NYC Semester in Journalism (NYCJ) program. When she was an undergraduate at Milligan, she spent a semester at the Washington Journalism Center, which closed in 2015 to merge with NYCJ and reboot in NYC. Sydney is one of the more than 300 alumni of the two programs from 41 partner schools of NYCJ, a program that helps bring students from diverse backgrounds and geographies to learn and intern for a semester in the nation's largest and most important media market. We caught up with Sydney to hear more about her journey to The Times and into her niche covering design, architecture and real estate.

Tell us about your fellowship at the NYT and what beat you are covering

I'm a reporter on the Real Estate desk. The fellowship program aligns fellows with the desks most suited to their backgrounds. For me, real estate made the most sense after spending several years in design media covering architecture and cities. I consider the beat to be the missing link in my tool kit in terms of writing about the built environment, so I’m here trying to learn as much as I can about how selling and buying real estate affects the socioeconomic landscape of the city.

Photo submitted by Sydney Franklin

There are 35 of us total in the fellowship class and we all are having wildly different experiences at The Times (think photography fellows jetting off on Air Force One vs. me calling real estate CEOs from my kitchen). We'll be here for a year then the next class will take over. Unfortunately, until there is a vaccine, I won't have the pleasure of working at The New York Times in-person… inside one of the coolest buildings in the city and of course, one designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano...my dream!

Please explain your journey to Milligan College and Syracuse and into your coverage area now at the New York Times?

Photo taken by Lauren Turner

After taking an undergraduate course on the intersection of media, the arts and religion, I decided I wanted to become an arts journalist. I knew Syracuse's Newhouse School had the first program in the country dedicated to this specialty, so I made it my mission to get in. Once there, I narrowed down my focus even further to architecture and design reporting, studying mostly in the School of Architecture to begin my education in this very dense, complicated field. My program had previously graduated alumni doing big work in New York, some of them in communications at major architecture firms and others serving as editors at the top design magazines. I followed in their footsteps in some ways but broke out into mainstream news this past year with the fellowship at NYT. I've always wanted to find my way back to newspaper reporting so I could use my depth of knowledge on cities to help tell the kinds of stories that locals need to know about the place they live...and in a pandemic where interest rates on mortgages and apartment rents have dipped to record lows, there are so many important real estate stories to share out there.

How did your semester at WJC help you in your career journey? How important was it for you to study in a major city like DC or NYC?

My semester at WJC in Washington, D.C. was the foundation for everything I'm doing today. It sparked my love of major cities and my interest in politics at the local and national levels. I interned for Street Sense Media, which reports on homelessness in D.C. and empowers people experiencing it by allowing them to take part in the organization's business model. Folks who are homeless are as much part of a city's fabric and future as anybody else and I learned how to pay attention to their stories through my beat.

What advice do you have for NYCJ students from our 41 partner schools who are spending a semester in NYC in an internship and classes?

My advice is to learn how to take micro risks. You’ve already done something big by making the decision to move to New York for this program. From here, keep building on that by making small moves every day to reach your goals, whether you want to report a certain story, meet an influential editor, or secure another internship or job. Reaching those goals will require a series of somewhat calculated and bold risks. People want to help you in this industry, so don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.

We see a challenged media industry but also an innovative one. What hope do you think exists for young people in high school or college or are considering a career in the news media today and in the future?

One of the redeeming qualities of the news industry right now is that it’s made up of people from all backgrounds, veritable experts in their own unique life experiences. You don’t have to climb the traditional ladder of journalism to get to an editorship at a major paper. Yes, you need the reporting and editing experience, but you can pursue other passions in tandem with your writing goals. One of my fellowship colleagues has a Ph.D. in immunology and is our science reporter at The Times. Let that inspire you for the future. There are some really smart people out here making the industry more innovative simply by existing in the space. There’s space for you, too.

What do you do for fun in NYC?

In pre-pandemic times, one of my favorite things to do was go to concerts. Nowadays, I'm enjoying watching the seasons change by going on longer walks in my neighborhood or even hikes outside the city. I also coach youth lacrosse in my spare time, which is something I've continued to do this fall but socially-distanced.

As someone who writes about urbanism and architecture, what are three of your favorite locations or neighborhoods in NYC?

Photo submitted by Sydney Franklin

I love this question. One of my favorite vantage points in New York is the view of FiDi from the Staten Island Ferry. I also love driving on the West Side Highway where you get a quick glimpse of all sorts of big architecture all the way from the George Washington Bridge down to Tribeca. Cycling on the Greenway works, too! My favorite building is the Bank of America Tower by Bryant Park. One time, driving home from a hike, my friend pulled out a special app that allowed us to change the colors of the antenna from our car. It was like magic.

For others who enjoy reading and thinking about urbanism, what publications - magazines, websites and newspapers - do you like to read (besides the NYT)? What related authors and thinkers do you recommend on the topic?

I highly recommend following Curbed, which now operates under New York Magazine. Justin Davidson is one of the funniest and most accessible critics out there, as well as Alexandra Lange (find her books too). I am on the advisory board of an online publication that highlights the stories of women in architecture called Madame Architect. It's so inspiring.

Paul Glader is director of the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute and co-director of the NYC Semester in Journalism (NYCJ). If you are a journalism professor or student interested in the program, email pglader@tkc.edu.