Justice Ginsburg: Ferguson Turmoil Illustrates "Real Racial Problem"+ SCOTUS Has Done Little to help

[kpete]

The turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., and the controversial stop-and-frisk policy in New York City illustrate a “real racial problem” in America, one that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have done little to help, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told The National Law Journal.

The high court was “once a leader in the world” in rooting out racial discrimination,” the justice said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her chambers. “What’s amazing is how things have changed.”
Ginsburg recalled the Burger Court’s unanimous landmark ruling in 1971 in which the justices, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, a Nixon appointee, embraced the powerful legal tool known as the “disparate impact” framework for uncovering discriminatory policies that are neutral on their face but disproportionately harm minorities.

In that ruling (Griggs v. Duke Power), Burger spoke of “built-in head winds” for minorities, she said. There was then a sensitivity that the requirement of a high school diploma for a janitor’s job, for example, would inevitably screen out black applicants.

“It was a very influential decision and it was picked up in England,” Ginsburg recalled. “That’s where the court was heading in the ’70s.”

MORE plus transcript:
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202667692557/Justice-Ginsburg-Skeptical-of-TwoYear-Law-School-Idea#ixzz3BE465DeP

[leftyohiolib]

1. america hasnt a race problem judge roberts says so