Quote of the Day
Justice Frankfurter warned 80 years ago that the Supreme Court was going down a bad path by getting into the business of ranking constitutional rights, protecting some at the expense of others, and today his dissent illuminates what has gone very wrong with our current Supreme Court. In a string of cases decided by an unchecked conservative super-majority, the court has established a tiering of constitutional rights, elevating rights to religious liberty (for some), free speech, and guns over and above other fundamental rights such as equality, public health and security, and bodily autonomy.
Katherine Franke
James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University and the founder and faculty director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project.
July 18, 2023
We’ve Entered a New Era of Tiered Constitutional Rights
Is Franke a visitor from an alternate universe and is working from a different U.S. Constitution? In my universe and reading my copy of the U.S. constitution there is no mention of “fundamental rights such as equality, public health and security, and bodily autonomy*.”
I would attribute the addition of these new rights to ignorance or poor schooling. But Franke claims she is a Professor of Law at Columbia University. If true, I find it hare to imagine she is so ignorant or poorly schooled that she did not have an accurate copy of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and been required to read them on multiple occasions. Hence the I am forced to conclude there must be an alternate explanation.
One could claim this is a deliberate lie intended to deceive the masses. But the lie is so obvious one could not expect it to accomplish, in the best case, a cause for laughter at her expense.
Hence, my leading hypothesis to explain this outrageous misrepresentation of the words and meaning of the constitution is that she is delusional and/or is a visitor from an alternate dimension.
I also find it quite telling there is no means to leave comments on her opinion piece.
* The Fourth Amendment reference to “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” appears to be limited to “searches and seizers” and it would be difficult to stretch it to mean “bodily autonomy.”
