The Truth About Judicial Stereotypes
by John ShuLiberals love to perpetuate the stereotype that “liberal” judges rule in favor of minorities, the poor, and the little guy (Good Things), while “conservative” judges rule in favor of evil corporations, police departments, and white males (Bad Things). This parallels the stereotype that Democrat politicians help the criminally accused and the working man while Republican politicians help evil corporations and police departments.

The White House and their allies are already trying to push these long-ingrained stereotypes in preparation for this summer’s upcoming Supreme Court confirmation battle to replace Justice Stevens’ seat. Like most stereotypes, however, they are not true.
Republican Supreme Court appointees have long-stood against heinous racial discrimination. For example, President Rutherford B. Hayes, a Republican, appointed Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone justice to dissent in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883) and Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896); these cases permitted segregation and “separate but equal” discrimination. President Herbert Hoover, a Republican, appointed Justice Owen Roberts (full disclosure: a fellow Penn and Daily Pennsylvanian alumnus), the lone Republican appointee on the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 213 (1944), a case where six Democrat-appointed justices ruled that the Constitution permitted the government to forcibly herd U.S. citizens of a particular ethnicity into concentration camps. Justice Roberts’ vigorous dissent said that “convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, [solely] based on his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States” was a “clear violation of Constitutional rights.” Interestingly, the liberals preferred “assembly area” as the euphemism for these concentration or internment camps.
Even Justice Stevens, whom the media now calls a “liberal lion,” did not stand up for the “little guy” nor his First , Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights as much as “conservative” justices like Justices Scalia and Thomas did.






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