Monday, July 11, 2005

Ruling on property seizure rallies Christian groups :: NYT

In a dissent, Justice O'Connor said the majority opinion implied an "absurd argument" that, among other things, "any church might be replaced by a retail store" in the name of economic uplift.
Meanwhile: John Fund writes,

In 1954 the Supreme Court declared in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. But that same year it also ruled in Berman v. Parker that government's power of eminent domain could be used to seize property in order to tear down "blighted" areas. It soon became clear that too often urban renewal really meant "Negro removal," as cities increasingly razed stable neighborhoods to benefit powerful interests. That helps explain why 50 years later so many minority groups are furious at the Supreme Court's decision last month.

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