Yesterday, during a discussion with fellow Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer on how to interpret the Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia said that he would have dissented from the unanimous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that struck down segregation in public schools. Because the Founding Fathers didn’t write it into the Constitution in 1787! Because people were okay with segregation when they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868! Strange thing to admit to, whatever your reasoning. [East Valley Tribune via Political Wire]
Update: Thanks to commenter DEHODGES for pointing out a post on the law blog Balkinization, which finds that the original report in the East Valley Tribune is inaccurate. Justice Scalia actually says he would have agreed with Justice Harlan, who was the lone dissenter in the Plessy case that upheld “separate but equal.”
