Justice Scalia's comments

That Texas should not have a football team because it's too tough for the blacks. They should be at lesser schools.

 

Hard to get lesser than Texas most of this season.

 

IIRC, the 1969 Longhorns were the last all-white team to win a national championship.

 

I'm not sure that's just what he's saying. If he did that, it's a concise, limited argument that can be answered in a range of ways. But he said something far broader and more full of holes.

 

Looking at the transcript, he seems to launch into the spiel well after the topic of that study is discussed. It follows a discussion of the nature of the 10 percent rule in producing diversity (kind of debatably what the case is about) and using race as a holistic qualifier in the non-10 percent cases.

 

This is what happens when you gets news from NY Daily News and don't understand how oral arguments work.

Arguments are presented by counsel. Questions are asked and positions are presented by the Justices to elicit a response from the arguing attorney. They want an argument that addresses the position presented. He wanted an argument to explain the position that blacks don't do as well in faster paced schools. He isn't an advocate, he's a justice.

 

Yes it does, which is why Scalia being a notorious blowhard and judicial activist plays a factor in how his comments are viewed. And not a favorable factor

 

Translation: If people don't like you, you should expect the things you say to be mischaracterized ...

 

I'm pretty confident that Clarence Thomas is the least-respected of the bunch, by whatever group of people you're trying to disparage.

That said, Scalia belches his opinion - constantly - in strong, colorful terms, so, yes, he'll be mischaracterized. (Or, perhaps, not mischaracterized at all.)

But Scalia's also held up by others - to too significant a degree at times - for this very quality. Thomas is afforded no such adoration or, generally speaking, loathing by the hard partisan on either side.

I honestly don't always know what Scalia's trying to do with the tenor/wording of many of his comments/questions/written opinions. He personally strikes me as someone who values shooting from the hip as a duty.

 

His reputation for being extemporaneously gifted took a hit on this one.

 

The things that people are upset over aren't questions he asked -- they were comments that he tried to pass off as factual statements.

 

Thanks to an assist by President Nixon.