Reply to Professor Tarpley’s Comment Regarding Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

ESSAY

REPLY TO PROFESSOR TARPLEY’ SCOMMENT REGARDING JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR

JEAN HOEFER TOAL•

INTRODUCTION 267

BACKGROUND 268

PROFESSOR TARPLEY’S ATTACK ON JUSTICE O’CONNOR 270

THE EVOLUTION OF THE STRICT SCRUTINY STANDARD FOR EQUAL PROTECTION CHALLENGES TO RACE-BASED

CLASSIFICATIONS 271

POST-CROSON: METROBROADCASTINGANDADARAND 275

THE IMPACT OF PERSONAL ATTACKS ON JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE. 279

CONCLUSION 282

INTRODUCTION

The Fall 2001 book of the South Carolina Law Review contains an essay by Joan Tarpley, J.D., Professor of Law at the Walter F. George School of Law, Mercer University entitled,A Comment on Justice O’Connor’s Quest for Power and Its Impact on African American Wealth.1 The essay is an overheated, sensational personal attack masquerading under the guise oflegal scholarship. Its thesis is that Justice O’Connor is a white supremacist who, through her opinion in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co.,2 seeks to dismantle affirmative action jurisprudence and strengthen her position as the swing vote on the United States Supreme Court in order to exercise the power of Chief Justice, in fact, if not in name.

Selection to the editorial staff of the South Carolina Law Review in the spring ofmy first year oflaw school remains one of the proudest events ofmy

•Chief Justice, Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Joan Tarpley, A Comment on Justice O’Connor’s Quest/or Power and Its Impact on African American Wealth, 53 S.C. L. REv. 117 (2001).

2. 488 U.S. 469 (1989).

267