Supreme Court Surprises

Warren Burger's Supreme Court continues to defy the prediction that it would be resolutely conservative and restrictionist. Its rulings are often surprising and innovative. Two from last week:

>"Woman is still regarded as the center of home and family life," intoned a majority of Earl Warren's court 13 years ago, as it refused to require states to treat men and women alike in calls for jury service. Last year Billy J. Taylor, a Louisiana man convicted of rape and kidnaping, raised the issue again; he pointed out that the state did not include women in jury pools unless they volunteered, and argued that this practice violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury drawn from a cross section of the community. Much has changed in 13 years. Citing the "evolving nature of the structure of the family unit," Byron White spoke for an 8-to-l majority reversing the thrust of the earlier decision. If "a fair cross section of the community" once did not necessarily include women, said White, "this is not the case today." The handful of other states that tend to discourage female jurors will now be forced to change. But the decision has broader impact. It gives a philosophical boost to the feminist concept of total equality between the sexes.

>The court's second important decision of the week involved public school discipline, and Dissenter Lewis Powell, speaking for the other three Nixon appointees, was deeply alarmed by the majority's decision. A former school-board chairman in Richmond, Powell decried the court's "unprecedented intrusion into the process of elementary and secondary education." Unprecedented perhaps, but did the ruling really call for any revolutionary changes in U.S. school administration? The case concerned nine students who had been summarily suspended for up to ten days by their principals in Columbus during 1971 racial disturbances. Their right to get an education had been unconstitutionally infringed upon, they said, and a five-man majority of the court agreed. Public school officials throughout the U.S., said the Justices, must henceforth inform any alleged offender of the evidence and charges against him, and then give him a chance to "tell his side of the story." The procedure can be informal--perhaps a face-to-face talk--but it must precede any suspension unless the student's presence poses a continuing threat of disruption. As for the dissenters' worries about the effects on education, Byron White pointed out that "we have [only] imposed requirements which are, if anything, less than a fair-minded principal would impose upon himself to avoid unfair suspensions." White did go on to indicate, however, that the court is likely to rule in a pending case that "more formal" regulations are necessary for expulsions or suspensions of longer than ten days.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.