Posted on 09/06/2005 5:24:35 AM PDT by Undertow
My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.
Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanford’s history: “When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews.” Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.
As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear[] the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.
The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (“Operation Eagle Eye”). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, “[H]e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.” In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.
Rehnquist later bought a home in Vermont with a restrictive covenant that barred sale of the property to ''any member of the Hebrew race.”
Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.
Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.
Within moments of Rehnquist’s death, Fox News called and asked for my comments, presumably aware that I was a longtime critic of the late Chief Justice. After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didn’t like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview. Only after I was off the air and could not respond did the attack against me begin, which is typical of Hannity’s bullying ambush style. He is afraid to attack when there’s someone there to respond. Since the interview, I’ve received dozens of e-mail hate messages, some of which are overtly anti-Semitic. One writer called me “a jew prick that takes it in the a** from ruth ginzburg [sic].” Another said I am “an ignorant socialist left-wing political hack …. You’re like a little Heinrich Himmler! (even the resemblance is uncanny!).” Yet another informed me that I “personally make us all lament the defeat of the Nazis!” A more restrained viewer found me to be “a disgrace to the Law, to Harvard, and to humanity.”
All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.
My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.
Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, 2005).
Somebody, please ZOT this, please ....
Alan Dershowitz,is an ugly democrat..I think he gets up in the morning looks at himself in the mirror and it ruins his day so he goes out and tries to ruin ours..What a liar this man is..
I'd be more comfortable with your assertion of the above as facts if Mr. Dershowitz had provided sources for the comments so indicated. It's easy to make claims without a source - and it makes it almost impossible for the accused party to refute the accusations.
That's a pretty dumb statement. Charles Lindbergh was retarded? How about Henry Ford?
Your no better than a poverty-pimp playing the race card.
Lindberg and Ford were perfect in every way. "ORDINARILY" was the word I used. WTF.
And I'll say it, Lindberg and Ford are morally retarded.
I wasn't confirming that Dershowitz's claims are factual; only that if true they are certainly adequate evidence of antisemitism. A search on "William Rehnquist" and "antisemite" turns up little or nothing, so I agree that Dershowitz needs to back up his statements with evidence.
mark
I'm sorry for not clarifying further and apologize for that. I was referring to your initial posting in which you wrote:
"...you seem to be sliding over the fact that he indulged in anti-semitic humor, including "goose-stepping", wearing "brown shirts" and saying "sieg hiel". These things do not necessarily make a bad supreme-court justice, but they do indeed represent solid evidence of anti-semitism."
I'm willing to be proven wrong. It's highly suspicious that you reached so quickly for the red-hot rhetoric, however.
Instead of obsessing over Buchanan, Falwell, or even this bizarre accusation of a judge from way in the past...it would behoove those who love Israel to try to get American Jews back on the side of Jerusalem. That is, the 75% of US Jewry who voted for the fashionable pro-Pali left.
One of the reasons that antisemitism is rising, IMO, is that the antisemites realize that they have nothing to fear from the large majority of American Jews. They can get away with it. Jewish loyalty to the left far surpasses loyalty to Israel or Judaism.
This is the big problem.
We need Jews back on board. I don't know how to do it. It will be left to the few conservatives...so why waste energy on Buchanan lookalikes?
It's highly suspicious that YOU reached so quickly for the red-hot rhetoric, however.
How nice...Dershowitz could've made these accusations while Rehnquist was alive and could answer the charges....but instead, he chooses to wait until he's dead.
Yes, but he's senile.
Um, you started it. Neener neener? This is devolving into a food fight. Truce.
I discriminate against Jews named Dershowitz as well as ones named Ders-no-witz.
OK, antisemitic or not, you're a jerk. Have a good life.
Fair question. I know next to nothing about Dershowitz, but did read his excellent book, "The Case for Israel". Some pointers, links or search terms would be helpful.
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