Say Anything Blog

They’re frustrated.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer shook his head. He rolled his eyes. He even grimaced once or twice as he listened to Chief Justice John Roberts read the majority opinion in the school diversity case on Thursday.

As the high court ended its term, Breyer showed obvious disappointment with the opinion. For liberal members of the court, it was not the only time this year their emotions surfaced during normally placid readings of the court’s opinions.

The ruling I posted on earlier barring schools from using race to determine student admissions is what had Breyer acting like a clown:

The ruling said the integration plans in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection. The plans were designed to keep schools from segregating along the same lines as neighborhoods. But parents sued after their children were denied admission to the schools they preferred because of their race.

In his dissent, Breyer was firm and pointed, and his agitation was clear. He said his dissent was “twice as long as any I’ve written before.” He punctuated his words by jabbing his right hand into the air.

He told the hushed courtroom three times that the majority was wrong.

“So few,” Breyer said, “have so quickly changed so much.” He ended his dissent, saying that “this is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret.”

The nation is going to regret a court ruling which states that public schools can’t deny enrollment to students who want to go there because of their skin color?  Somehow, I doubt it.  But, like a typical liberal, Breyer doesn’t like the idea of uppity citizens just getting to choose their schools.

I think what’s got Breyer so up-in-arms is the fact that the liberals have lost control of SCOTUS, and that’s thrown a monkey wrench into the left’s ability to advance their agenda.  Because that’s how the left has advanced it’s agenda over the last decade or so.  They eschew the will of the people as applied through the legislative process and relied on the will of unelected judges instead.

This term, the liberals on the court have lost almost every significant fight, said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who argues before the court and follows it closely.

“They didn’t have much of anything in the way of victories to make them feel like it was a balanced term,” said Goldstein. “It came across as very one-sided.

“They can see that big shifts are coming to the right on the law,” he said.

And it’s about time.

The SCOTUS under Roberts hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been a change for the better.