Today in Supreme Court History: April 13, 1896

4/13/1896: Plessy v. Ferguson argued.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Would be decided the same way today. I used to wonder how Thomas would vote but nowadays I’m pretty sure he would be in the majority. Impassioned dissent from Sotomayor, joined by Breyer, and without the bone to white supremacy thrown by Harlan. Separate dissent by Kagan based on some abstruse procedural ground.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't be quite so cynical about the Court - only Thomas doesn't pay attention to precedent.

Plus, political expectations matter as well.

And I've learned I cannot predict where Thomas will come down these days; his jurisprudence has gotten pretty confusing lately.

[DaivdBehar]

This case illustrates the inability of the lawyer to read the plain English of the constitution. It will just make shit up to impose its tyranny, feelings, whims and moods on the nation. Justices must get impeached for their decisions by the Congress.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Would be decided the same way today."

Oh BS.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"Separate is inherently unequal" is a Critical Race Theory concept which I doubt you would be signing onto.

[Brett Bellmore]

Separate isn't inherently unequal, but as a practical matter is always unequal when demanded by people who don't want equality. And I'm fine with the courts recognizing that sort of fact after a track record has accumulated.

The problem with CRT is that, to the extent you can even nail it down, (It's always something other than whatever you complain about...) it actually rejects "treating people according to the content of their character", insisting that not taking race into account is itself discriminatory. From Wikipedia, "Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (1930 – 2011), an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist, writes that racial equality is "impossible and illusory" and that racism in the U.S. is permanent."

It's not so much fact based, as rejecting facts in favor of doctrine.

[Sarcastr0]

This formulation does not work. It's like animus analysis, which was rejected, but would require a much more subtle fact-finding into legislative intent.

[Brett Bellmore]

You mean my first paragraph analysis. Yeah, rejecting separate but equal was, IMO, a result of animus analysis, even if the Court didn't want to say so.

Separate had just been unequal, as a result of animus motivating the separate status in the first place, for so many decades, that the Court just gave up on humoring the notion that it was ever meant to be equal.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Our constitution is colorblind."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Colorblind" is one of the euphemisms (similar to "traditional values," "conservative values," "heartland," and "family values") that right-wingers attempt to hide behind in an America whose progress has caused the vestigial bigots to prefer not to be known as bigots anymore, at least not in public.

The bigotry was open, casual, even common a half-century ago; today, it is defensive and guarded. Bigots tend to conceal their intolerance in public, expressing it instead in what they regard to be safe spaces -- online message forums, private homes, militia gatherings, Republican Committee meetings, and the like.

This change among poorly educated racists, superstitious gay-bashers, selfish xenophobes, and obsolete misogynists is one of the great achievements of the liberal-libertarian mainstream during my lifetime. It appears to be causing a diminution in old-timey bigotry in today's America, especially among our younger, better educated Americans, most especially in modern, strong, educated communities.

Carry on, colorblind traditional conservative family values heartlanders.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're just being silly and hyperbolic. There aren't enough 'liberal' Justices on the Court to get that outcome again. (Remember, it's the left that's defending racial segregation these days.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

In Brett Bellmore's brain, Republicans and conservatives are the genuine social justice warriors -- looking out for Black Americans in particular.

There is probably a diagnosis that helps to explain this delusion.

[DaivdBehar]

Woke destroyed the diverse family, with its soaring bastardy rate. Woke loosed the vicious gangbangers into their neighborhoods. Woke deterred the police from protecting the diverse. Woke is 100 times more lethal than the KKK lynch mobs. The Klan killed 4000 people over 100 years. Woke kills that number in excess murders by other diverses every year. 100 times more lethal than the KKK.

Then woke killed 30 million diverse babies, going beyond the wildest dreams of the most extreme genocidal maniac.