Last Chance For A Color-blind Constitution?

by William Perry Pendley - September 1st, 2006 - Townhall.com

In the Court’s 2003 ruling on the use of race by law schools to achieve “diversity,” Justice O’Connor opined that such programs should last no longer than 25 years. Given the Court’s troubling history on the issue and the relentlessness of advocates of state-sponsored racial preferences and quotas (wrongly called “affirmative action”), proponents of a color-blind Constitution took no comfort in her meaningless pledge. Their worst fears were realized when, using Justice O’Connor’s 2003 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of a plan by Seattle School District #1 to assign students based on their race to achieve “diversity.”

This article shows the roller coaster pattern of our justices in caring about our Constitutional guarantee of equal justice under the law and then abandoning this concern when they think it is popular to do so. Their latest belief that the Constitutional guarantee of equal rights may be subverted to some bureaucrat’s view of what constitutes diversity is the latest contempt they show for their sworn duty.

Justice O'Conner essentially ruled in 2003 that the Supreme Court could suspend the Constitution for 25 years if there was something the Supreme Court saw as an important goal, no matter how many people's rights were damaged in the attempt. O'Connor seems too stupid to realize that if the court can suspend the Constitution for 25 years, they can do it forever with equal arrogance.