1971—In what politics professor Shep Melnick calls “one of the most confused and internally contradictory opinions ever issued by the Supreme Court,” Chief Justice Warren Burger’s unanimous decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education will (in Melnick’s summary) lead “federal judges throughout the South to mandate extensive busing to create racially balanced schools” and “become the foundational opinion for those who believe that desegregation requires rather than prohibits the use of race in assigning students to particular schools.”
2006—In Harper v. Poway Unified School District, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit rules that the First Amendment permits schools to impose viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on student speech. The case arose when Tyler Harper wore an anti-homosexuality T-shirt to his high school in response to the school’s sponsorship of a gay-rights event. The school ordered Harper not to wear the T-shirt. Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s majority opinion rules that schools may bar “derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students’ minority status such as race, religion, and sexual orientation.” As Judge Alex Kozinski argues in his dissent, the school district “may have been justified in banning the subject [of homosexuality] altogether by denying both sides permission to express their views during the school day.” But having permitted the pro-gay speech, the school can’t be allowed to gag other viewpoints.
Harper’s complaint will be rendered moot when he graduates from high school. In March 2007, the Supreme Court will grant Harper’s petition for certiorari and vacate (i.e., wipe from existence) the Ninth Circuit’s ruling.
2021—In the course of denying an alien’s request for relief from a removal order, Sixth Circuit judge Martha Craig Daughtrey somehow sees fit to opine in her majority opinion (in Lopez-Soto v. Garland) that “a not-insignificant number of Americans believe that any change to our immigration statutes should result in shutting our borders to almost all individuals, or at least to all potential immigrants who are not blond-haired and blue-eyed.” In his opinion concurring in the judgment, Judge Amul Thapar nicely replies:
“I have my doubts about the wisdom of courts opining on hot-button political issues or the motives of citizens who hold one position or another in those debates. And as someone who is neither blond-haired nor blue-eyed and who has benefited directly from the kindness of the American people, I believe that the American Dream is alive and well for persons of all stripes.”
2021—In an astounding ruling (in LA Alliance for Human Rights v. City of Los Angeles), federal district judge David O. Carter seizes power as homelessness czar and orders the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles to take a broad set of actions to address the area’s homelessness crisis. Among other things, the City must place one billion dollars “in escrow”—i.e., under Carter’s supervision—and the City and the County must “offer and if accepted provide” housing to the “general population living in Skid Row” by mid-October 2021.
In September 2021, a unanimous panel of Ninth Circuit judges, all of whom were appointed by President Obama, will vacate Carter’s order and criticize it as “largely based on unpled claims and theories.” Further, the plaintiffs “failed to put forth evidence to establish standing,” and Carter “impermissibly resorted to independent research and extra-record evidence.”