Nina Totenberg
Nina Totenberg is NPR's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Her reports air regularly on NPR's critically acclaimed newsmagazines All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition.
Totenberg's coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs has won her widespread recognition. She is often featured in documentaries — most recently RBG — that deal with issues before the court. As Newsweek put it, "The mainstays [of NPR] are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the creme de la creme is Nina Totenberg."
In 1991, her ground-breaking report about University of Oklahoma Law Professor Anita Hill's allegations of sexual harassment by Judge Clarence Thomas led the Senate Judiciary Committee to re-open Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings to consider Hill's charges. NPR received the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for its gavel-to-gavel coverage — anchored by Totenberg — of both the original hearings and the inquiry into Anita Hill's allegations, and for Totenberg's reports and exclusive interview with Hill.
That same coverage earned Totenberg additional awards, including the Long Island University George Polk Award for excellence in journalism; the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting; the Carr Van Anda Award from the Scripps School of Journalism; and the prestigious Joan S. Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based national affairs/public policy reporting, which also acknowledged her coverage of Justice Thurgood Marshall's retirement.
Totenberg was named Broadcaster of the Year and honored with the 1998 Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the National Press Foundation. She is the first radio journalist to receive the award. She is also the recipient of the American Judicature Society's first-ever award honoring a career body of work in the field of journalism and the law. In 1988, Totenberg won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for her coverage of Supreme Court nominations. The jurors of the award stated, "Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge (Douglas) Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure."
Totenberg has been honored seven times by the American Bar Association for continued excellence in legal reporting and has received more than two dozen honorary degrees. On a lighter note, Esquire magazine twice named her one of the "Women We Love."
A frequent contributor on TV shows, she has also written for major newspapers and periodicals — among them, The New York Times Magazine, The Harvard Law Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and New York Magazine, and others.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that targets the validity of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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Payday lenders argue that the CFPB's funding structure is unconstitutional because it's not funded by money appropriated by Congress. The argument threatens the existence of other agencies, too. -
The Supreme Court is back on the bench for a new term full of cases involving controversial issues — like guns, abortion, social media and more.
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In one form or another, all those questions are back on the table this term — mainly to take a second look at appeals from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas and parts the South. -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court opens a new term with big cases on guns, abortion and government regulation.
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The military has long maintained that the nation's security depends on having a diverse officer corps that is ready to lead an increasingly diverse fighting force. -
Students for Fair Admission, the conservative group that won a Supreme Court ban on affirmative action programs, is suing West Point to eliminate all racial considerations in the academy's admissions.
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Justice Clarence Thomas, who has been the subject of scrutiny over gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow, reported additional trips Crow paid for in newly released financial disclosure forms.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to send to the Senate floor a bill that would require the Supreme Court to issue a code of ethics for itself.
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Chief Justice Roberts kept a firm grip on the court. He assigned himself four of the seven most important opinions, including affirmative action, and he won some more nuanced outcomes.