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New Look at an Old Memo Casts More Doubt on Rehnquist
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: March 19, 2012
WASHINGTON — In 1952, a young Supreme Court clerk wrote a memorandum that would come to haunt him.
The court was considering Brown v. Board of Education, the great school desegregation case. The question for the justices was whether to overrule Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that said “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional.
The memo, prepared for Justice Robert H. Jackson, was written in the first person and bore the clerk’s initials — “WHR,” for William H. Rehnquist.
“I realize it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by ‘liberal’ colleagues,” Mr. Rehnquist wrote, “but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.”
NY Times Story
Published: March 19, 2012
WASHINGTON — In 1952, a young Supreme Court clerk wrote a memorandum that would come to haunt him.
The court was considering Brown v. Board of Education, the great school desegregation case. The question for the justices was whether to overrule Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that said “separate but equal” facilities were constitutional.
The memo, prepared for Justice Robert H. Jackson, was written in the first person and bore the clerk’s initials — “WHR,” for William H. Rehnquist.
“I realize it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by ‘liberal’ colleagues,” Mr. Rehnquist wrote, “but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.”
NY Times Story
If true, this really taints whatever positive legacy Rehnquist may have had. He believed and segregation and lied about his advocacy thereof. Also, the theft of Justice Frankfurters papers from the Library of Congress smells like ratfucker cover-up.
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