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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No president in history has done that, but some likely have contemplated it. -
In a recent tweet, President Trump stated that he has the "complete power to pardon." NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg explores what the possible limits of that power might be.
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The Supreme Court refused to block a ruling by a U.S. district judge in Hawaii that allowed grandparents and other relatives of refugees to enter the U.S., exempting them from the Trump travel ban. The court said the matter must be decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which the Trump administration was hoping to leapfrog.
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Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas agreed on cases spanning several hotly contested issues, including same-sex marriage, gun rights, immigration and taxpayer aid to religious schools. -
The Supreme Court ended its term Monday with a full bench, ready to weigh into some divisive issues in the fall. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein about the term and what's next for the court.
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The Supreme Court on Monday let a portion of President Trump's travel ban take effect and agreed to hear arguments about all the elements of the ban when the court reconvenes in October.
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The court upheld a regulation preventing a Wisconsin family from developing part of their land, denying them government compensation. The decision is a huge win for regulators and environmentalists.
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The Supreme Court sided with the state of Wisconsin on Friday in a land dispute case. The justices upheld Wisconsin court rulings that the family was not entitled to compensation over development regulations that block the sale of the family's adjacent lot.
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The Supreme Court said Thursday an immigrant's citizenship could not be revoked because of an untrue statement to authorities that was immaterial to the granting of citizenship.
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In ruling against the detainees, the court said that "high officers who face personal liability for damages might refrain from taking urgent and lawful action in a time of crisis."
