Briahna Joy Gray: Supreme Court’s ‘workaround’ for Garland daughter’s clerkship is not ‘available to all’

Briahna Joy Gray, co-host of the “Bad Faith” podcast, said Wednesday that while the Supreme Court announced that a clerkship awarded to one of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s daughters would not take place while her father is in office, similar “workarounds” have not always been given to others in comparable situations. 

In an interview on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Gray said that a Black friend of hers was denied a federal court clerkship in a southern state because his uncle was a magistrate judge on that court. 

“There are nepotism rules in place at a number of institutions that seem to not have the same workaround for folks who aren’t quite so connected,” Gray said in response to the high court’s statement saying that Jessica Garland was hired before the 2020 election and her father’s appointment, and that she will not clerk for Justice Elena Kegan until her father is no longer the head of the Justice Department.

“I think the real story here in some ways is just that when you come from a family of immense power and privilege, opportunities present themselves to you, sometimes you’re qualified for them, sometimes you’re not,” she said. “It’s a mixed bag.” 

“But, it can be frustrating when we’re living in a world with such enormous inequality across the board, to see people continue to get opportunities that aren’t available to all,” she argued. 

Watch part of Gray’s interview above.