‘Brennan’: Man Behind a Legal Revolution

Forty years ago this month, President Dwight Eisenhower was heading toward an easy reelection victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson. New York Yankee Don Larsen made baseball history by pitching a perfect game in the World Series.

In a little noted news item on Oct. 16, 1956, Ike filled a vacant Supreme Court seat by picking an obscure New Jersey judge named William J. Brennan Jr. Time magazine reported it in a five-paragraph story headlined, “A Happy Irishman.”

For the next 34 years, however, the little Irishman with the twinkle in his eye and a warm handshake became a driving force inside the nation’s highest court. Nearly everyone knows what followed: the breakdown of racial barriers in American society, the ban on official prayers in public schools, the proclamation of equal rights for women, including a right to abortion, and the spread of wide-open free speech and political protest, even the burning of the flag.

Few know the man behind this legal revolution. An hourlong PBS documentary, “Mr. Justice Brennan,” tries to remedy that. It’s being shown, appropriately enough, tonight, on the first Monday in October.

The program features rare on-camera interviews with a half-dozen Supreme Court justices, including Harry Blackmun, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. In an apparent attempt at political balance, the conservative Scalia is given ample time to criticize Brennan’s liberal decisions.

Regrettably, the aged and raspy voiced Brennan speaks little for himself. He is now 90 and in failing health, but others--notably Breyer and Ginsburg--try admirably to sum up his enormous contribution.

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How did this one justice, little known to the general public, come to play such a large role in reshaping American law? He had a clear vision of the Constitution, they say, one that upholds the “human dignity” of all, especially the lowliest of Americans. He was determined to make the constitutional ideals into reality.

And then too, Blackmun notes, there was that “Irish charm.”

Unlike some liberals who are more fond of “The People” than actual people, Brennan had both a generous view of humanity and showed a genuine warmth for everyone he met. Even his critics on the court, including Scalia and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, are quick to attest they consider Bill Brennan one of their finest friends.

His activist style of judging remains controversial. Conservatives rightly asked, “Is it the Supreme Court’s job to remake American society?” And whose “rights” are due protection? After all, the abortion foe can assert that an unborn baby’s “right to life” is surely as worthy of legal support as the woman’s right to choose abortion.

But judges must decide, and Brennan did. He wrote more than 1,200 opinions for the court. His words not only changed our laws but, as several commentators point out, they now serve as models for new democracies around the world.

If you are interested in a primer on recent constitutional history, “Mr. Justice Brennan” supplies it. Even better, it introduces one of the great, if largely unknown, figures of recent American history.

* “Mr. Justice Brennan” airs at 10 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28.