The spirit of the Lord
shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His
delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not
judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he
shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
Isaiah 11:2-4a
It has been almost forty years
since Earl Warren died. In my earliest memory, I thought his name was "Chief
Justice Earl Warren." I don’t remember whether or not I was surprised to
discover that he was not a Native American. Later, I remember the bumper
stickers that said, “Impeach Earl Warren.” They were rare on Cape Cod, and more
of a curiosity than anything else.
Earl Warren was a Republican,
appointed Chief Justice by President Eisenhower after serving three terms as
Governor of California. In the second election he was unopposed in the general
election, having won the nomination of the Republican, Democratic and
Progressive parties. Before serving as Governor, he was the Attorney General,
and before that he was a district attorney, known for his skill and toughness.
Sadly, as Attorney General, Warren was
the driving force behind the compulsory internment of Japanese citizens during
the Second World War. He was convinced that Americans of Japanese ancestry
could not be trusted to be loyal to the United States and that the internment
was an act of self defense by the government. In his memoirs, Warren wrote of
his deep regret regarding "the
removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping
with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens...Whenever I
thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school
friends, and congenial surroundings, I was conscience-stricken.”
As a young person, I believed
deeply in the goodness of the Supreme Court. They were the keepers of the flame
of liberty. They were the ones who would keep us on course. And I believed that
when a person was appointed to the court, he (or later, she) would feel the
gravity of that sacred office and rise above partisanship. In those days I had
a very idealized view of history, and I had no trouble believing that decisions
like “Dred Scott,” or “Plessy v. Ferguson” were aberrations, and that “Brown v.
Board of Education” was and would always be the norm.
I have been reflecting on the
debt we owe to “The Warren Court.” Without their ruling on segregation, it is hard
to imagine the Civil Right Act. And it’s hard to imagine the subsequent Civil
Rights gains for women and more recently for gays and lesbians. Our expanding
view of equality is a legacy of the Warren Court. Earl Warren and his
colleagues were in the right place at the right time.
One suspects that the outcome
would have been very different if the Warren Court had ruled on “Citizens
United,” and on the related case in Montana.
And it is interesting to wonder
how the Roberts Court would have decided on “Brown.” In one sense that’s not
really possible even to imagine, since the Roberts Court would be very
different without that decision. Justice Thomas certainly would not be on the
Supreme Court without Earl Warren’s leadership on “Brown.” And we probably
would not have any women, either.
If the Warren Court were
considering the Affordable Care Act, I think the Chief Justice would have to recuse himself. One of Earl Warren’s unsuccessful initiatives as Governor of
California was universal health care.
No comments:
Post a Comment