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Possible, but there are other cases where the fact of inequality was not in question and the court still ruled (unanimously) in favor of segregation. Look at Cu

Possible, but there are other cases where the fact of inequality was not in question and the court still ruled (unanimously) in favor of segregation. Look at Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumming_v._Richmond_County_Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumming_v._Richmond_County_Boa... I think it's very important for people to understand how fluid the Supreme Court can be and how much it responds to public opinion, in choosing which cases to accept and deciding them. Look for example at the unanimous 180 between Pace v. Alabama and Loving v. Virginia. In Loving, the court declares "To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State." None of this is in the text, this interpretation of "the principle of equality" isn't really supported by an originalist analysis, and it doesn't turn on the particular facts presented to the court.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Possible, but there are other cases where the fact of inequality was not in question and the court still ruled (unanimously) in favor of segregation. Your example isn't one of them, though, and in fact the decision in it expressly holds out that the issues would have been different had the plaintiffs had challenged the unequal service rather than the tax. (Largely the same Court had only just before that handed down the “separate but equal” rule in Plessy v. Ferguson, forget original intent, Cumming has an incredibly strained handwave to get out from dealing with Plessy. > None of this is in the text, this interpretation of "the principle of equality" isn't really supported by an originalist analysis I disagree; it's perhaps hard to support by a textualist analysis (but not that hard, even there), but it's not hard at all to support with an originalist one. The fact that the national political climate rather swiftly abandoned the intent of the brief moment of radical Republican triumphalism when the 14th Amendment was passed and imposed on the South by force and that subsequent decisions reflect that change in the mood is, of course, important to note.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Possible, but there are other cases where the fact of inequality was not in question and the court still ruled (unanimously) in favor of segregation. Your example isn't one of them, though, and in fact the decision in it expressly holds out that the issues would have been different had the plaintiffs had challenged the unequal service rather than the tax. (Largely the same Court had only just before that handed down the “separate but equal” rule in Plessy v. Ferguson, forget original intent, Cumming has an incredibly strained handwave to get out from dealing with Plessy. > None of this is in the text, this interpretation of "the principle of equality" isn't really supported by an originalist analysis I disagree; it's perhaps hard to support by a textualist analysis (but not that hard, even there), but it's not hard at all to support with an originalist one. The fact that the national political climate rather swiftly abandoned the intent of the brief moment of radical Republican triumphalism when the 14th Amendment was passed and imposed on the South by force and that subsequent decisions reflect that change in the mood is, of course, important to note.