Release date: July 1, 2005
Contact: Elaine Justice, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Justice O'Connor's Retirement Will Have Dramatic Impact, Says Emory's Schapiro

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court will have a much more dramatic effect on the court than the expected retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, says Emory's Robert Schapiro, professor of law at Emory University School of Law and former clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens.

Justice O'Connor has been the swing justice on many important issues, and her replacement could change the direction of the court on those issues, says Schapiro. "With regard to affirmative action, Justice O'Connor has been the key justice in allowing certain forms of racial preferences," he says. "In the recently decided Ten Commandments case, Justice O'Connor was the key vote in holding unconstitutional the display of the Ten Commandments in certain courthouses in Kentucky. She joined the majority in emphasizing that the Constitution requires government neutrality toward religion."

With regard to abortion, the immediate effects of Justice O'Connor's absence are likely to be less dramatic because there is a six-justice majority supporting women's right to abortion. "But her retirement does represent an erosion of support for that right," says Schapiro. "Justice O'Connor also was the key vote in striking down a state ban on partial-birth abortion, so in that area of the court's abortion jurisprudence there may be a more immediate shift."

Reach Schapiro at 404-727-1103 or rschapir@law.emory.edu.

Back