John Payton

Payton grew up in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from high school. He attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he became heavily involved in civil rights and anti-war protests.{{cite news |last1=Lingappa |first1=Elina |title=From Claremont to the Supreme Court: John Payton's PO '73 search for knowledge and justice |url=https://tsl.news/john-payton-legacy/ |access-date=5 November 2022 |work=The Student Life |date=25 February 2022}} Payton was one of the founders of Pomona's Black Student Association. For three years, Payton served as an admissions officer at the Claremont Colleges, a position that he helped create to recruit black students. He graduated in 1973.[http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources/publications/washington_lawyer/june_2001/payton.cfm "A Conversation With D.C. Bar President John Payton"], DCBar.org. Accessed 28 July 2008 He left the admissions position after receiving a Watson fellowship, which allowed him to study literature in West Africa for a year and, while abroad, he applied to law school.

After being accepted at and entering Harvard Law School, Payton worked on several civil rights cases and was a member of the editorial board for the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review. He graduated from law school in 1977.

Following law school, Payton spent a year clerking for then-U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Cecil Poole. He then moved to Washington, D.C. where he was recruited to Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now known as WilmerHale) by James Robertson.

While at the firm, Payton worked on several important civil rights cases. He successfully defended the NAACP against an anti-trust lawsuit brought by white merchants in Mississippi who had lost business in the wake of a 1966 desegregation boycott.

In City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., Payton unsuccessfully defended the city's set-aside affirmative action plan established to assist minority businesses in receiving city construction contracts. He argued the case in the Supreme Court of the United States where the Court narrowly ruled against the city and determined, for the first time, that all government uses of race - including affirmative action programs - would be subject to strict scrutiny.[http://www.ur.umich.edu/0203/June16_03/07_payton.shtml], Katie Gazella, The legal team: John Payton, The University Record Online, June 24, 2003. Accessed 28 July 2008.

When Sharon Pratt Dixon was elected mayor of Washington, D.C. in 1991, Vernon Jordan tapped Payton to become the District's corporation counsel. As corporation counsel, he reorganized, centralized and streamlined the corporation counsel offices. Early in his term, Payton dealt with the aftermath of the Mount Pleasant riots and worked to improve Latino and police relations in the city. He also participated in balancing the city's budget in the face of a major crisis.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Payton to head the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. Following objections from the Congressional Black Caucus and despite some prominent African-American support for Payton, Payton withdrew his name for consideration.{{cn|date=August 2022}}

In 1994 Payton left the D.C. Corporation Counsel office to join his wife, Gay McDougall, in South Africa. Ms. McDougall was in South Africa working as a member of the Independent Electoral Commission, which ran South Africa's first democratic elections that year. Nelson Mandela was elected president. At the same time, Payton served on an international observer team that included lawyers from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The couple remained in South Africa for several months before going back to D.C.

Returning to Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, Payton took on a civil practice that included representing corporations in employment matters, the American Legacy Foundation in its efforts to prevent youths from smoking, and Fannie Mae in a major class action challenge.[http://www.wilmerhale.com/john_payton/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818112756/http://wilmerhale.com/john_payton/|date=2007-08-18}}, Wilmerhale.com, Attorney Profile: John Payton. Access 28 July 2008

While still at the firm, Payton was tapped to be the lead counsel for the University of Michigan in defending its law and undergraduate schools' use of race in their admissions processes. For more than six years, Payton handled the two high-profile cases in the trial court and in the court of appeals, and argued Gratz v. Bollinger before the Supreme Court. He organized a broad coalition from higher education, the military and top businesses in support of diversity initiatives. In a narrow decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race in college admissions.

Payton served as president of the District of Columbia Bar for one year in 2001. He also served as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center and Howard University School of Law. He was repeatedly recognized by his peers and news outlets as one of the nation's top lawyers.

In 2008, Payton was appointed the sixth director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. following in the footsteps of such civil rights giants as Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg.{{cite web|url=http://www.naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article%3D1225 |title=NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- News |accessdate=2008-07-29 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100120062307/http://www.naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article=1225 |archivedate=2010-01-20 }}, NAACPLDF.org, LDF Appoints Leading Civil Rights Attorney John Payton as Director-Counsel and President. Access 28 July 2008.

The annual Payton Distinguished Lectureship at Pomona College, established in 2017, is named in his honor.

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Category:1946 births

Category:2012 deaths

Category:20th-century American lawyers

Category:20th-century African-American lawyers

Category:American activists

Category:Attorneys general for the District of Columbia

Category:Harvard Law School alumni

Category:People associated with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Category:Pomona College alumni

Category:Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partners