| During his 1971 Supreme Court confirmation process -- and again in 1986, when he was elevated to chief justice, William Rehnquist was forced to explain a 1951 memo he'd written, as a clerk to then-Justice Robert H. Jackson. He told the Senate the document, which argued that the court should preserve "separate-but-equal" racial segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education case, was merely written as "a statement of Justice Jackson's tentative views for his own use." Rehnquist's memo said: I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by "liberal" colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed. Jackson and the unanimous court ended up rejecting the "tentative view," overturning Plessy"s embarrassing holding that public accommodations could legally be segregated along racial lines. |
Read the rest of the story HERE:
At thinkprogress.org
At thinkprogress.org
