A bust of Chief Justice Roger Taney will be removed from the US Capitol building and replaced by one of Thurgood Marshall, under legislation cleared by the House Wednesday.
Taney authored the court’s notorious 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held Black Americans were not US citizens. The bust of Marshall, the court’s first Black justice, will replace Taney’s, which currently sits in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the Capitol.
The bill (S. 5229) was passed by the Senate Dec. 8, and will now go to President Joe Biden for his signature.
“While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision,” the bill said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading:
See Breaking News in Context
Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis.
Already a subscriber?
Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources.