The Haynsworth Record

Many informed critics of Clement Haynsworth's nomination to the Supreme Court argue that he is perhaps being opposed for the wrong reasons. Despite the Senate flap over his financial dealings, some of Haynsworth's detractors are more upset about his judicial decisions than his judicial ethics. They charge that he has too often been a standpat, antiliberal jurist during his twelve years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. While his record in criminal cases has gone virtually unchallenged, on two other fronts —civil rights and labor cases—critics are concerned about a number of Haynsworth opinions. A chronological look at some that they find troubling:

Civil Rights

1962. Like many Southern cities in the early '60s, Charlottesville, Va., devised a school-zoning plan that produced de facto segregation. Elementary school pupils were assigned to neighborhood schools, but if members of their race were in the minority, they could transfer to schools where their own race was predominant. In effect, white students were invited to stay in white schools. When his court outlawed the practice as an evasion, Haynsworth joined in a dissent, arguing that the Constitution does not bar "the exercise of the personal tastes of the races in their associations." Later, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected such transfer plans on the ground that they obviously perpetuate segregated schools.

1963. For four years, Virginia's Prince Edward County had closed its public schools to avoid integration. Instead, white private schools were set up and carried on with the help of public funds. Negroes sued to reopen the public schools. When the case reached Haynsworth's court, he waited eight months before writing a majority opinion that told the Negroes to wait for state court decisions before asking for federal court action. In dissent, one of Haynsworth's fellow judges called the situation "a truly shocking example of the law's delays." The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed Haynsworth's decision, saying: "We hold that the issues here imperatively call for decision now."

1963. Haynsworth's court decided that Negro doctors and patients were the victims of discrimination at two private hospitals in Greensboro, N.C. Because the Constitution does not cover purely private discrimination, Haynsworth argued, the court could do nothing for the plaintiffs. But a majority of his colleagues held that it could, emphasizing that the Government had partly financed the hospitals, which thus subjected them to constitutional safeguards against discrimination. 1965. When Negro pupils sued the Richmond school board to desegregate teachers—in addition to students—a 3-to-2 majority of Haynsworth's court held upon appeal that a lower court did not have to consider the claim. Writing for the majority, Haynsworth said that the pupils had failed to show that teacher assignments based on race "effect a denial of their constitutional rights." Again, a unanimous Supreme Court reversed.