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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But the court upheld a separate mandate for almost all employees at hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers that receive federal funds.
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Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, died from complications from cancer. Her death will set in motion what promises to be a tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her.
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The decision is a dramatic victory for immigration advocates and gives a new lease on life for the so-called DREAMers, immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
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The Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether Missouri should provide a grant to a church preschool, or if that violates the state's constitution. The state's new governor has abandoned the rule.
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Tuesday's case tested whether state legislative districts should count all persons or only eligible voters when district lines are being drawn.
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Sila Luis could not hire a lawyer to defend her in court because her adversaries had succeeded in having her financial assets frozen.
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In 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court limited life sentences without parole for juveniles who commit murder. On Tuesday the panel will hear arguments on whether the ruling should apply retroactively.
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The Supreme Court heard its first death penalty case of the new term Wednesday. There seems to be a certain detente on the court but more death cases loom on the horizon.
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The Supreme Court returned for its new year Monday with its traditional first Monday ceremony and a new docket of high profile controversies to address.
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A Stradivarius violin, which was stolen and hidden for 35 years, has now been found. It belonged to the late virtuoso Roman Totenberg — the father of NPR's Nina Totenberg. Nina tells the story.
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The Supreme Court allowed the use of a controversial drug for lethal injection. Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent called the requirement of proof of a more humane method "patently absurd."
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The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, setting off celebrations nationwide. Opponents — and justices' incensed dissents — suggest the fight isn't over.