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Show M SCELLA THE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL • SOUTHE]lN UTAH UNIVERSITY• MONDAY, JULY 3, 1995 Chief Tu tice William Rehnquist, second from right. poses with members of the upreme Court. From lefr are, Associate Tustice . Clarence Thomas, Antonin calia, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David outer, Stephen Breyer, Tohn Paul Stevens, Relmquist, a11d Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A conservative court: Five sticking together By RICHARD CAR£LLJ ASSOCIATED PRES WRITER WASHlNGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court's 1994-95 tenn will be remembered a one of its most conservative in 40 year , largely because five justices stuck together to contro1 most of the politically charged case . The court clamp d down on fed ral affirmative action program , allowed p ublic funding of a private religiou activity £ r the fir t tim , r strain d federal judge presiding ver cho l de egregation and - on T h ur day m ade it for more difficult to boost black voters' political clout. Each time, the vote wa 5-4. And each timC', the five were ChiefJu tiee William H. RehnqLList and Justices Sandra ay O'Connor, Anthony M . Kennedy, An onin calia and Clarenc Thoma . That left Ju tic John PauJ teven , David H . Souter, Ruth Bader Gin bm and Stephen G . Br yer united in di ent and on the wrong end of developing Am dean Jaw. "What we're eeing time and again is the Constitution m eans what Kennedy and O'Connor ay it mean ," aid orgetown Univer ity law profes or Mark Tushn t. "This term, we'v had a harp cons rvative turn." n the oth r ide, Souter, appointed by President Bu h in 1990, ha shown an increa ingly liberal treak. Clinton appointees Ginsburg and Br yer al o were more comfortable voting with St v ns, nom inally the court' most liberal membe.r, than with th con ervativ s. Rehnquist, " ffrst a mong equals" a the chi f, leads the court' con ervative bloc, but Scalia and Thoma have proved even m re pas ionately d clicated to puJling the court to the polib cal right. Throughout their high court tenu.res, O 'Connor and Kennedy have been viewed a modcrat con ervativc who often upply th key vote in the most divisive cases. M t oft n in the ju t-c mpleted term, tho e key vot locked in conservative re ults. As was the ca e in 198 - 9, th ourt' la t m aj r move t th ri ht, blacks and other minorities wer the harde t hit. "Thi court apparently is bent on di mantling civil ri ht ," aid Laughlin McDo nald of the American Civil Libertie Union. "These re ults have been about as bad a they po sibly can be." Concluding it term Thursday, the court ai d in a Georgia ca e that election di trict drawn mainly to b o t black voter ' political impact are unlawful. It al o ruled that the University of Virginia wrongly refused t pay $5,800 toward th publi hing of a tudent-nm Chri tian magazi ne. 1n an earUer ruling, the court aid in a Col rad ca c tha t Congres mu t b held to the same trict tam.lard a tate and lo al g vemment wh n it give pecial help L racial or ethni minoricje and i ac u ed of di cnminating again t whites. And it niled that a federal judge in Kan a City, Mo., wen t too far in insisting that tate officials continue to h lp pay for a ma ive plan to racially de egr gat the city' cho l ·. N ot all the big cases yielded con ervative r esults. K nnedy bolted and join d teven , Souter, Gin bur and reyer to fonn a 5-4 majority that barred states from imposing Limit on lawmakers' term. And O'Conn r join d the same fo ur in two important rulings that enhanced the rights of state pri on inmates t win federal court hearing . More than m t, the term reminded that American la w often means what ju t five of the nine m embers f the Supr me Court ay it means. |