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I always knew that you couldn't trust Romanists to be True Conservatives™, even though they hate so many of the same people whom God hates. Justice Antonin Scalia has long been honored as a champion of the judicial philosophy of original intent, as against legislating from the bench to create new "rights" like equal protection of the laws. Now, he hems and haws on the subject, since it might give a result that is politically incorrect under Obamunism.
From the JYT:
Indeed it is. Scalia has revealed his true colors as a judicial activist who thinks that nine black-robed dictators at One First Street, N.E., should undo the people's democratic right to run our schools as we see fit.
From the JYT:
From 19th-Century View, Desegregation Is a Test
If there is a topic Justice Antonin Scalia does not relish discussing, it is how he would have voted in Brown v. Board of Education had he been on the Supreme Court when it was decided in 1954.
* * *
The Brown decision, which said the 14th Amendment prohibited segregation in public schools, is hard to square with Justice Scalia’s commitment to originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that says judges must apply the original understanding of the constitutional text.
Brown presents originalists with a problem. The weight of the historical evidence is that the people who drafted, proposed and ratified the 14th Amendment from 1866 to 1868 did not believe themselves to be doing away with segregated schools.
Yet Brown is widely thought to be a moral triumph. A theory of constitutional interpretation that cannot account for Brown is suspect if not discredited.
Originalists hate the subject. Justice Scalia has called it “waving the bloody shirt of Brown.”
* * *
“Where would you be with school desegregation?” [America-hating LIE-beral Justice Breyer] asked with a satisfied expression. “It’s certainly clear that at the time they passed the 14th Amendment, which says people should be treated equally, there was school segregation and they didn’t think they were ending it.”
* * *
But Justice Scalia did not give a direct answer to how he would have voted in Brown.
“As for Brown v. Board of Education, I think I would have” — and then he changed directions. He said he would have voted with the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the case Brown overruled.
* * *
In a 2005 profile in The New Yorker, Justice Scalia told Margaret Talbot that he would have voted with the majority in Brown. But he did not explain why, and Ms. Talbot wrote that “it’s hard to see an originalist justification for it.”
If there is a topic Justice Antonin Scalia does not relish discussing, it is how he would have voted in Brown v. Board of Education had he been on the Supreme Court when it was decided in 1954.
* * *
The Brown decision, which said the 14th Amendment prohibited segregation in public schools, is hard to square with Justice Scalia’s commitment to originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that says judges must apply the original understanding of the constitutional text.
Brown presents originalists with a problem. The weight of the historical evidence is that the people who drafted, proposed and ratified the 14th Amendment from 1866 to 1868 did not believe themselves to be doing away with segregated schools.
Yet Brown is widely thought to be a moral triumph. A theory of constitutional interpretation that cannot account for Brown is suspect if not discredited.
Originalists hate the subject. Justice Scalia has called it “waving the bloody shirt of Brown.”
* * *
“Where would you be with school desegregation?” [America-hating LIE-beral Justice Breyer] asked with a satisfied expression. “It’s certainly clear that at the time they passed the 14th Amendment, which says people should be treated equally, there was school segregation and they didn’t think they were ending it.”
* * *
But Justice Scalia did not give a direct answer to how he would have voted in Brown.
“As for Brown v. Board of Education, I think I would have” — and then he changed directions. He said he would have voted with the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the case Brown overruled.
* * *
In a 2005 profile in The New Yorker, Justice Scalia told Margaret Talbot that he would have voted with the majority in Brown. But he did not explain why, and Ms. Talbot wrote that “it’s hard to see an originalist justification for it.”
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