O’Connor’s Record

Re “O’Connor as a ‘Centrist’? Not When Minorities Are Involved,” Opinion, April 12: While the ends for which Herman Schwartz strives are noble, his Machiavellian approach is quite disturbing, particularly coming from a professor of constitutional law. It is quite appalling that he seems to advocate the subversion of the Constitution for his social engineering goals and that he equates voting for equal rights for all people, regardless of race, as a vote “against the racial minority.”

Schwartz complains that time and again Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and her cohorts have struck down affirmative action laws and that while they “talk about the need to remedy” they are constantly hostile toward any remedy. Perhaps if the remedies proposed were not as problematic as the symptoms they seek to cure, they would find less resistance from the courts. It seems that Schwartz would prefer the courts to simply ignore the Constitution and common sense in order to achieve his desired ends.

MICHAEL MANDEL, Huntington Beach