Opinion of the Court By a 5 to 3 majority, the Supreme Court held that Section 1945(3) does not provide a cause of action for protesters blocking entrance to an abortion clinic. In the decision delivered by Justice
Antonin Scalia, the court rejected the claim that "women who want abortions" is a class that could satisfy the suggestion in Griffin that discrimination as contemplated under Section 1984(s) could extend beyond the issue of race. The rationale was that if "women who want an abortion" is a class requiring protection, then it would necessarily follow that "people who want to engage in any activity that we seek to prevent" would qualify for similar protection under the statute. The court concluded this would convert the statute into the "general federal tort law" that the animus requirement seeks to avoid, finding that the conspiracy, "... must aim at a deprivation of the equal enjoyment of rights secured by the law to all." Based on the District Court's finding that the petitioners (Operation Rescue members) described their activity with reference to a physical intervention between abortion practitioners and "the innocent victims", the Court concluded that the "animus" requirement could not be met because the demonstrations were not motivated by a purpose directed at women as a class. Therefore, the court does not decide whether women in general would qualify as a §1985(3) class under
Griffin. Justice Scalia simply states that "women seeking abortion" is not a qualifying class. Based on this record, Justice Scalia concluded that a class-based animus could be established only if either: • opposition to abortion can reasonably be presumed to reflect a sex-based intent, or • intent is irrelevant, and a class-based animus can be determined solely by effect. With respect to the first possibility, the court rejects the notion that opposition to voluntary abortion might be considered an "irrational surrogate" for opposition to women. Justice Scalia states that with respect to abortion, "...it cannot be denied that there are common and respectable reasons for opposing it, other than hatred of, or condescension toward, women as a class." Justice Scalia frames the final determination of necessary animus as a question "...of whether the proposition that intent is legally irrelevant; that since voluntary abortion is an activity engaged in only by women, to disfavor it is ipso facto to discriminate invidiously against women as a class." The opinion answers this question in the negative, stating that prior cases do not support this. The opinion cites two prior cases: • Geduldig v. Aiello, 417 U. S. 484 (1974), that found that a state disability insurance system that denied coverage to certain disabilities resulting from pregnancy had not discriminated on the basis of sex, stating that because "... only women can become pregnant, it does not follow that every legislative classification concerning pregnancy is a sex-based classification." • Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256 (1979), that reached a "similar conclusion" in denying an Equal Protection Clause challenge to a Massachusetts law giving employment preference to military veterans, a class which in Massachusetts was over 98% male." Under
Feeney "discriminatory purpose" implies more than "intent as awareness of consequences", it implies that "adverse effects upon an identifiable group" were, at least in part, the purpose of the activity. The decision in
Bray holds that the same principle applies to "the class-based invidiously discriminatory animus" requirement of §1985(3) and the class-based animus can not be determined by the effect. Four justices filed separate opinions: •
Anthony Kennedy filed a concurring opinion •
David H Souter filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part •
John Paul Stevens filed a dissenting opinion, joined by
Harry A. Blackmun •
Sandra Day O'Connor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by
Harry A. Blackmun Concurrences Justice
Anthony Kennedy filed a concurring opinion noting that there are three separate dissenting opinions in this case offering differing interpretations of the statute in question. He concludes that "Given the difficulty of the question, this is understandable, but the dissenters' inability to agree on a single rationale confirms, in my view, the correctness of the Court's opinion. As all recognize, essential considerations of federalism are at stake here. The federal balance is a fragile one, and a false step in interpreting § 1985(3) risks making a whole catalog of ordinary state crimes a concurrent violation of a single congressional statute passed more than a century ago." Justice
David H Souter filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part. The opinion supports the court's decision insofar as it relies on
stare decisis, but disagrees with the Griffin and Carpenters "rights guaranteed against private encroachment" and "class-based animus" requirements. In his opinion, Justice Scalia characterizes Souter's approach as "(1) undertaking a full-dress reconsideration of Griffin and Carpenters, (2) concluding that both those cases were wrongly decided, and (3) limiting the damage of those supposed errors by embracing an interpretation of the statute that concededly gives the same language in two successive clauses completely different meanings."
Dissents Justice
John Paul Stevens filed a dissenting opinion, joined by
Harry A. Blackmun. Justice Stevens concludes that in this case, the court has bypassed the plain language of the law in favor of relying on prior precedent, noting that in those cases the statute had been narrowly construed in order to avoid what were perceived to be serious constitutional issues within the statute itself. In Justice Stevens' view, the protesters "... engaged in a nationwide conspiracy; to achieve their goal they repeatedly occupied public streets and trespassed on the premises of private citizens in order to prevent or hinder the constituted authorities from protecting access to abortion clinics by women, a substantial number of whom traveled in interstate commerce to reach the destinations blockaded by petitioners. The case involves no ordinary trespass, nor anything remotely resembling the peaceful picketing of a local retailer. It presents a striking contemporary example of the kind of zealous, politically motivated, lawless conduct that led to the enactment of the Ku Klux Act in 1871 and gave it its name." Justice Scalia counters that "Those are certainly evocative assertions, but as far as the point of law we have been asked to decide is concerned, they are irrelevant...." Scalia notes that to the extent that the protesters violated state and local laws, they are subject to criminal prosecution and civil claims within those jurisdictions. Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by
Harry A. Blackmun. Justice O'Connor characterizes Griffin's requirement of a "class-based animus" as a shorthand description of the types of actions that the statute is meant to address. However, she agreed with the dissent in Carpenters that "... Congress had in mind a functional definition of the scope of [§ 1985(3)]," and intended to "provide a federal remedy for all classes that seek to exercise their legal rights in unprotected circumstances similar to those of the victims of Klan violence." Accordingly, she would have found that § 1985(3) protected "...nonunion employees injured by mob violence in a "self-professed union town" whose residents resented nonunion activities." It is O'Connor's opinion that if a class is protected by the statute, then it must apply to actions where the motivation is directly related to the unique characteristics of that class. She concludes that the action of blocking access to an abortion clinic is class-based within the meaning of Griffin because it is directly related to the unique abilities of women to become pregnant and to terminate their pregnancies. == Subsequent Developments ==