On 1 May, American lawyers celebrated law day. This year’s theme: “To Win Equality by Law: Brown v. Board at 50.” For the American Bar Association, it was an unambiguous celebration of the power of the courts to improve our lives. Among the recommended talking points, the ABA suggests:

“Civil rights legislation has brought the ideal of equality closer to reality. So have the many laws passed to assure equal opportunity in the workplace for women, persons of different races and ethnic backgrounds, and persons with disabilities, among many others.”

In this week’s townhall.com, Thomas Sowell offers some much-needed scrutiny regarding the relationship between the law and the reality of equality. In his first article, he observes,

The key fallacy underlying the civil rights vision was that
all black economic lags were due to racial discrimination.
That assumption has survived to this day, in the courts,
in the media, in academia, and above all in politics.

No amount of factual evidence can make a dent in that
assumption. This means that a now largely futile crusade
against discrimination distracts attention from the urgent
need to upgrade educational standards and job skills among
blacks.

The flimsy and cavalier reasoning used by the Supreme Court,
which based its decision on grounds that would hardly sustain
a conviction for jay-walking, set a pattern of judicial activism
that has put American law in disarray on all sorts of issues
that extend far beyond racial cases. The pretense that the
Court was interpreting the Constitution of the United States
added insult to injury.

He goes on to describe additional instances of harmful judicial activism, and concludes,

Brown v. Board of Education was not just about race
or schools but was about a whole judicial mindset with
ramifications across a whole spectrum of issues -- and
reverberations that are still with us in the 21st century.
Its pluses and minuses have to be added up with that in
mind.

The intent of the justices in the landmark case – to allow black children and white children to receive an equal education – was good. But distorted reasoning has led to an dangerous judicial landscape where justices are allowed to ignore legal prescendent and shape American life to fit their own desires.

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» Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary from DebWire
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation of public schools “solely on the basis of race” denied black children equal educational opportunity, even though “physical facilities and other ‘tangible... [Read More]

Tracked on May 17, 2004 5:43 AM