Race ruling and a roar of dissent
Casting a long shadow

Reuters

Casting a long shadow

One of the selling points of John Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court was an era of cosy comity led by a, yes, conservative, but nevertheless thoughtful Justice, whose intellect, integrity , and devotion to "judicial modesty" was unquestioned.

Translation: After the law reflecting the will of the people has been flipped by jewish radicals, "conservatives" must play along with the charade or be demonized as racists.

What is shaping up instead is an increasingly bitter division -- in which, for example, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Souter is being described as changing from a "cautious liberal" to an "angry liberal" -- where potshots are being taken at Justice Roberts' grasp of basic concepts, and a growing suspicion in some quarters that what has been purchased is a pig in a poke.

For example,

It's not every day that one Supreme Court justice, even one as rhetorically unrestrained as Justice Antonin Scalia, characterizes another justice, let alone the chief justice of the United States, as a wimp and a hypocrite.

That was the lede of Thursday's New York Times court story ('Even in Agreement, Scalia Puts Roberts to Lash').

For Scalia, in the eyes of some observers, Roberts is not moving fast enough to overturn fundamentals of American law as we know them. For Justice Stephen Breyer, on the other hand, radical reaction is already at hand.

Already noted for the almost unprecedented nature -- and drama -- of his 21-minute, 77-page oral dissent in the two voluntary school desegregation cases, a "grim-faced," "angry" Breyer accused Roberts of not only "aggrevating race-related conflict," but of a "cruel historical distortion" when he justified his ruling in the current cases as following in the footsteps of the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education.

Whether one agrees with the court's action or not, Breyer's dissenting opiniin may come to be seen as a landmark in itself, if for nothing else than the final passing of an era.

The full text the dissent (joined by Justices Ginsbury, Souter and Stevens) can be read here.

Posted By: Andrew S Ross (Email) | June 29 2007 at 12:15 PM

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Comments

The Roberts court made the right call in the Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No 1 case (what you refer to in a biased and quite disingeneous manner as "school desegregation cases"). Breyer's intellectual dishonesty is yet again confirmed in his unpersuasive dissent. Discriminating against children for social engineering goals is patently unconstitutional. Everyone, regardless of their political leanings, should realize this fact.

Posted By: JWN1 | June 29 2007 at 02:12 PM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/foreigndesk/detail?blogid=16&entry_id=18125