THEY DO LOVE THE SKINNY END OF THE WEDGE:

Roberts vote seen as critical in racial issues: Earlier writings opposed affirmative action plans (Charlie Savage, August 7, 2005, Boston Globe)

Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s opposition to affirmative action, outlined in internal memos he wrote 24 years ago as an aide in the Reagan administration, could provide a decisive vote to end racial preference programs across the United States if he is confirmed to the Supreme Court, observers vetting his record say.

The court is split about whether the Constitution permits the preferential treatment of certain groups to foster diversity, or to remedy historic discrimination. The last time the court dealt with affirmative action, in 2003, it voted, 5 to 4, to allow colleges to use race as a factor in evaluating applicants.

The deciding voter, and the author of the 2003 opinion that upheld the University of Michigan Law School's admissions policy, was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts, who would replace O'Connor, wrote in 1981 that affirmative action violates ''the bedrock principle of treating people on the basis of merit without regard to race or sex."

Such a position would place Roberts in the camp of the most conservative justices, who oppose affirmative action programs. The programs aim to give advantages to applicants for college admissions, jobs, or government contracts to promote diversity or to remedy discrimination.

''It's clear that Roberts is going to be much closer to the Scalia-Thomas-Rehnquist camp in terms of issues like affirmative action than to a Justice O'Connor," said Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School.

It's more than Karl Rove could hope, that Democrats would oppose Judge Roberts for being insufficiently pro-quota.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2005 09:47 AM