Word: brennan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...never known exactly when the court will hand down an historic ruling. One traditional clue, though, is the appearance of the Justices' wives, so there was a rustle of anticipation in the crowded courtroom just before 10 last Wednesday morning at the sight of Cecelia Marshall, Marjorie Brennan, Mary Ann Stewart and Elizabeth Stevens. The wives had arrived...
...groups within the court. He accepted a portion of the opinion of the four Justices who upheld the California Supreme Court decision in favor of Bakke: Burger, William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens and Potter Stewart. He also sided in part with the four Justices who decided against Bakke: William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall and Byron White. He thus ended by writing the critical opinion for a sharply divided court...
...none of its cases, said Brennan, had the Supreme Court ever ruled that the Constitution is color blind. It does not make sense, he declared, to try to eliminate the evil of racial discrimination and then forbid the remedies that are required to accomplish this. Congress avoided any "static definition of discrimination in favor of broad language that could be shaped by experience, administrative necessity and evolving judicial doctrine...
...Brennan agreed that racial preference could not be condoned simply on the grounds that it was being undertaken for benign purposes. But he thought the Davis program for minority applicants was justified. It aimed to remedy "substantial and chronic underrepresentation" of minorities in the field of medicine. No proof is needed, said the Justice, to show that those who benefit from the program have been victims of discrimination. They fall within a "general class" of people who have suffered discrimination. Whites, it is true, are excluded from the program, but they are not stigmatized...
...Brennan concluded that there was no practical alternative to the Davis program. Setting aside places for disadvantaged students without regard for race would not work. Whites would still outnumber blacks. Brennan could see no constitutional distinction between the Davis and Harvard programs...