Contact:
Milw. National Lawyers Guild, 414
273-1040, ext .12; www.nlg.org/milw email:
[email protected]
PROTESTS PLANNED AGAINST
REHNQUIST ON FRIDAY MAY 24 at 3:00 pm
On
May 24, 2002, United States Chief Justice William Rehnquist will come home to
receive an award for "excellence" at Shorewood High School. A
coalition opposed to his record of allegedly undermining civil rights and
democracy plans to peacefully protest
outside the school, on Oakland Avenue, south of Capitol Drive, starting at 3pm
on Friday, May 24th.
The Ad Hoc Coalition Protesting the Rehnquist Award consists of Shorewood High
School students and village residents, as well as a number of civil rights organizations. These critics
claim that Rehnquist had a long record or working to undermine civil rights and
voting rights, even before he lead a one-vote Supreme Court majority to order a
stop to vote counting in the recent presidential election. According to the
coalition, Rehnquist actively opposed laws to end official racial
discrimination and segregation, and his campaign to give former Pres. Nixon
unilateral powers to wiretap any US citizen was rejected by every judge who
considered it. On the Court, he has led a narrow majority which has substantially
weakened laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the National
Labor Relations Act as recently as this spring.
The
Coalition calls on all concerned residents to voice their opposition to
Rehnquist's actions and the decision to honor him. It has also requested that
the Shorewood School District provide its students with a forum to hear from
lawyers who support civil rights, regarding Rehnquist’s record, such as from
the Milwaukee NAACP and the National Lawyers Guild. This would give Shorewood
High School students an informed opportunity to decide for themselves whether
his example should be honored.
Shorewood
residents in particular are invited to contact the school district by signing
an open letter which is available from Atty. Larry Dupuis at [email protected], home telephone
332-5468, or from the website www.geocities.com/justice_watch. They are also invited to attend the next School
Board Meeting on Tuesday evening, May 14th, in the high school
library.
Besides
many students and residents of Shorewood, some of the organizations involved in
the coalition include the National Lawyers Guild - Milwaukee, National
Organization for Women - Milwaukee, the Federation for Civic Action, Peace
Action – WI, Voter March- Wis., and the Angela Davis CopWatch.
For
more information, including citations to Rehnquist's record, contact the
National Lawyers Guild at 414 273-1040, www.nlg.org/milw
or the Justice Watch website www.geocities.com/justice_watch.
Some
of the information gathered by the Coalition about his record is contained
below.
In 1964, Rehnquist actively fought passage of a Phoenix ordinance permitting
African-Americans to enter public stores.
During
the early 1960’s, he personally participated in “Operation Eagle Eye" an
attempt to challenge voting rights of minorities (primarily Hispanics).
Rehnquist testified under oath during his Senate confirmation hearings that he
had not personally challenged voters, but this has been called into serious
question by the testimony of four others involved, including a former assistant
US attorney for that district who affirmed that he witnessed Rehnquist in 1962
personally confronting voters and attempting to challenge their right to vote.
To hear eyewitness testimony about his personal efforts to suppress minority
voting, listen to the “Democracy Now! report at http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20001212.html
Rehnquist
wrote a legal memorandum in 1952, "A Random Thought on the School
Desegregation Cases," claiming that it would be unconstitutional for the
courts to order school desegregation, and asserting that the notorious decision
"Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed." Official
racial segregation might still be the rule of law today of this view had been
accepted, but it was rejected by a unanimous U.S. Supreme court in Brown v.
Board of Education in 1954. Rehnquist's attempt to later claim that what he
wrote did not reflect his own views. but those of the Justice he worked for,
has been rejected by court historians as not being credible. He later drafted
and submitted to President Nixon a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw
court-ordered use of buses to end segregation.
The Senate confirmed him with the largest negative tally for any Chief Justice.
At that time 75 legal scholars expressed grave concern about a "disturbing
thread" regarding his "integrity and ethical standards."
And more recently, the Chief Justice helped to stop the recount of Florida
votes, which awarded the presidency to George W. Bush. This ruling was based on
temporarily expanding the Constitution's Equal Protection clause in a manner
that Rehnquist and his allies on the court had not afforded to citizens of
color in prior civil rights cases, and then ruling that this holding would not
have general application in future cases. Meanwhile, the court did not address
the widespread exclusion of African-American voters and others in the Florida
elections. Over 670 legal scholars stated this was a ruling, not of a court of
law, but of political partisans.
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