Opinion: Recalling how a Supreme Court justice, when discussing illegal immigration, used an ethnic slur

Anti-immigrant groups already are lining up in support of Pearce because, if passed, his new bill might give them a chance to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 ruling that struck down Texas’ attempt to deny public education to undocumented immigrant children. The Plyler decision is a bete noir to many conservatives, who regard Justice William Brennan’s opinion on behalf of the 5-4 majority as a kind of high-water mark of judicial activism. Pearce and his supporters are fishing in particularly angry and ugly waters with this new initiative, for the court’s deliberations on Plyler took an unusually personal turn. According to Brennan’s notes, at one point during their conference on the case, Justice William H. Rehnquist, the future chief justice, referred to the plaintiffs as “wetbacks.” When an angry Thurgood Marshall objected to the slur, Rehnquist -- who had practiced law in Arizona for nearly 20 years -- replied that the term was commonly used where he came from. Unappeased, Marshall demanded an apology, comparing it to the vulgar epithet for blacks to which he’d been personally subjected. Rehnquist declined to back down.