Whose Equal Protection?

>>>>> "jeremy" == Jeremy Anderson <[email protected]> writes:

  jeremy> Hello Mr. Clark, I had a question about your article in the
  jeremy> Monkeyfist Collective entitled, "Whose Equal Protection?"
  jeremy> (http://monkeyfist.com/articles/725). There's a provocative
  jeremy> quote in it that goes:

  jeremy>   "In the long run it is the majority who will determine
  jeremy> what the constitutional rights of the minority are. I
  jeremy> realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position,
  jeremy> for which I have been excoriated by liberal colleagues, but
  jeremy> I think Plessy v. Ferguson the legal foundation for
  jeremy> mandatory racial segregation was right and should be
  jeremy> re-affirmed. -- William Rehnquist

  jeremy> What's the source for this quote? I've tried finding it on a
  jeremy> server that archives Supreme Court decisions, but couldn't
  jeremy> find it.

I don't have a precise cite. It was in a memo he prepared before he
was put on the Court, but while he was clerking there. He wrote it
while he was clerking for Justice Jackson, in the '52-'53 term, during
deliberations re: Brown v. Board of Education. Jackson was the chief
American prosecutor at Nuremburg, I think. Thank god Rehnquist's
racist nonsense wasn't heeded; I think Brown was a 9-0 vote.

I'm sure Mike Zara, the MF "staff law student" can probably shed some
light on all this.

The quote is authentic.

Bob Herbert quotes it verbatim, as I did, in the NYT,January 10, 1999,
in a piece called "In America; The Real Disgrace".

I found it on US Senate's web site in a file of materials related to
Rehnquist's confirmation hearings for Chief Justice, during which he
stupidly and cravenly denied having written it, or somesuch.

I regret not preserving the URL where I found it.

Some of the following  might be helpful:

     http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20001202roddy.asp
     http://www.villagevoice.com/features/9902/vest.shtml
     http://iwhome.com/ComicNews/rants/rant66.html
     http://lawbooksusa.com/supremecourt/rehnquist.htm
     http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/2000IV/msg03493.html

I only wish I'd been politically active during his confirmation
hearings, but I was only a junior in high school. He's really
loathsome. 

I recently heard a law prof at Duke, Walter Dellinger, say the present
court, in contrast to the Warren court ('52 to '68, iirc), is the
smartest, hardest working, and most scholarly ever. While I'm sure
that's true, the Rehnquist court's propagation of a states' rights
agenda is lamentably retrogressive.

His Craig v. Boren (1976) and Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma
County (1981) alone are reason enough to spurn him, both of which, as
I understand them, refused to apply equal protection to gender
disparities.

Best,
Kendall Clark
-- 
Jazz is only what you are. -- Louis Armstrong