Civil Rights Reverses

William Bradford Reynolds (“Stripping Away the Quota Barnacles,” Op-Ed Page, June 28) apparently is continuing what I call his campaign to reverse civil rights laws by his endorsement and interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court Wards Cove case decision. That decision will make it more difficult for women and minorities to obtain more “level field” opportunities in hiring and promotion practices.

He uses words arousing emotional responses, such as quotas, statistical imbalances , and colorblind , in such a way as to endorse what prevents attainment of equal opportunity in the job market by minority groups in our country.

It is particularly ironic to read Reynold’s attack on some of the dissenters on the Supreme Court for speaking with a “forked tongue” when he uses words, such as mentioned above, that are code words which, to large segments of our population, are themselves instances of discriminatory language.

Of greater usefulness in interpretation of legal decisions would be to take cognizance of the late California Supreme Court Justice Mathew O. Tobriner’s viewpoint in the Bakke case (1976). I believe this to be one of the great dissents of the 20th Century, and I published that belief. I was pleased to find Justice Tobriner assenting to the reasoning used in coming to that conclusion in a personal letter, dated July 29, 1980.

Tobriner emphasized in Bakke that the total social framework in schools and employment is a part of social necessity in law, for social purposes and social goals in achieving factual equal opportunity. Broad, not rigid, goals are certainly to be of great consideration in interpreting the Constitution, and the actual conditions of social living must be brought into the picture in making legal decisions.

It is this that Reynolds in his legalistic, technical interpretations of social purposes and social goals, and the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court overlook in their interpretations of the meaning of the Wards Cove case!

H. ROGIE ROGOSIN

Laguna Hills