(b. Fort Collins, Colo., 8 June 1917; d. Denver, Colo., 15 April 2002; interred Saint John's Episcopal Cathedral, Denver, Colo.), associate justice, 1962–1993. Byron White was born into a family of modest means in Fort Collins, Colorado. He spent his childhood in Wellington, a small agricultural community in northern Colorado, where his father worked in the lumber industry. The future justice attended the University of Colorado on scholarship, graduating in 1938 as valedictorian. White excelled in athletics, being voted All American in football and earning the nickname “Whizzer” for his talent as a running back. Following graduation, White played one season for the Pittsburgh Pirates (later called the Steelers) and led the league in rushing. In 1939, he accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. When war erupted in Europe, White returned to the United States to study law at Yale and during the 1940–1941 season resumed his professional football career with the Detroit Lions. He joined the navy shortly after the United States entered the war and served in the Pacific. Upon cessation of hostilities, he married his college sweetheart Marion Stearns and completed law school at Yale with high honors in 1946. White clerked for Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson in 1946–1947, after which he practiced law in his native Colorado.

When John F. Kennedy mounted his campaign for the presidency in 1960, White became an active supporter. The two had crossed paths three previous times—first when White studied in England and Kennedy's father was ambassador to Great Britain, then again when both were naval officers in World War II, and finally in Washington, when White's clerkship coincided with Kennedy's first term in Congress. White initially headed the Kennedy forces in Colorado and then chaired “Citizens for Kennedy,” a national organization devoted to recruiting Republican and Independent voters. The new president rewarded White's efforts by naming him deputy attorney general, a position in which he focused on the selection of lower court judges and on civil rights issues.

In 1962, Justice Charles Whittaker announced his resignation, giving President Kennedy his first Supreme Court appointment. The president selected White, who was judged both extremely qualified and a supporter of New Frontier policies. White's nomination was confirmed in the Senate by voice vote on 11 April. On 16 April, at the age of forty‐four, White became the ninety‐third justice of the Supreme Court.

White's performance on the Court was one of nondoctrinaire pragmatism. His voting record, while consistent within specific policy areas, varied from liberal to quite conservative across a broad range of issues.

White's most liberal positions were on discrimination questions. During the Warren Court era he steadfastly supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He took similarly liberal positions on issues of sex and economic discrimination. In the 1980s, however, White often parted company with the Court's liberal wing on questions of affirmative action and minority set‐aside programs.

On personal liberty issues, White was more likely to cast a conservative vote. He supported restrictions on pornographic materials, rejected special rights for reporters, approved sanctions against flag burners, and voted for greater accommodation between church and state. Although White recognized a constitutional right to privacy in 1965, he consistently voted to sustain state restrictions on abortions. Additionally, White wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) upholding state sodomy laws against privacy right challenges.

Justice White's most consistently conservative rulings occurred in criminal rights cases. He dissented from the Court's liberal rulings in Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and supported the validity of capital punishment laws. He was a critic of the exclusionary rule in search and seizure cases and authored the 1984 majority opinions limiting that rule.

After serving thirty‐one years (the tenth longest tenure in Court history), White retired in good health in 1993. In retirement he occasionally sat by designation as a court of appeals judge, and he chaired the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals.

Bibliography

• Dennis Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White: A Portrait of Justice Byron R. White (1998)

— Thomas G. Walker

Byron R. White (born 1917) was a football star, a successful lawyer, a deputy U.S. attorney general, and a U.S. Supreme Court justice. On the high court, he was considered an independent and often served as a swing vote in close decisions, though he most often sided with the conservatives.

Byron R. White was born on June 8, 1917, in Fort Collins, Colorado, and grew up in Wellington, a small farming and trading town in northern Colorado. His father was a branch manager for a local lumber supply company. From their early youth White and his brother worked long hours at hard-labor jobs in sugar beet fields or on section crews for the railroad, their income vital to the family during the bleak years of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Though neither of White's parents had gone through high school, they valued academics and sports, and Byron was accomplished at both. He graduated from high school first in his class and won an academic scholarship to the University of Colorado.

Glory Days

In college White excelled in sports and academics, winning numerous varsity letters in football, basketball, and baseball and being elected Phi Beta Kappa. Nicknamed "Whizzer" for his speed, White as a junior received national attention as Colorado's star running back. Graduating with one of the highest averages in the university's history, White accepted a prestigious Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University. Before going to Oxford, he played the 1938-1939 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, receiving what was at the time the highest salary ever paid to a professional football player. White led the National Football League in rushing, the first rookie ever to lead the league in any department.

After a short time studying at Oxford, White returned to the United States in the fall of 1939 to enter Yale University Law School. He won the Edgar Cullen Award for receiving the highest grades of the freshman class and was appointed to a coveted job on the Law Review. But he declined in order to "play football and make some money instead, " he later recalled. White played the 1940-1941 season with the Detroit Lions, then continued law study during the summer at the University of Colorado. White signed another pro football contract for 1941-1942, but after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the Navy. During World War II White was a naval intelligence officer in the South Pacific, winning two bronze stars for courage in action. He also renewed his acquaintance with another decorated officer, PT-boat commander John F. Kennedy, whom he first had met at Oxford.

To the Supreme Court

After the war White married his college sweetheart, Marion Stearns. He then returned to Yale and finished the final year of law school, graduating in November 1946 magna cum laude. During the 1946-1947 term White held a prestigious law clerkship at the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Fred Vinson. Again he met Kennedy, who was then a freshman congressman. Although he received offers from leading Washington law firms, White returned to Colorado to begin practice in Denver.

In the 1950s White established a successful legal career, achieving recognition throughout the state. When Kennedy began his campaign for the presidency in 1959, White organized local Colorado-for-Kennedy clubs and successfully gained the bulk of the state's delegate votes for his old friend at the 1960 Democratic convention. White helped Kennedy in his national campaign as well, and the new president named him deputy attorney general. White served capably, especially during the civil rights struggles in the South. In March 1962, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Charles E. Whittaker, Kennedy nominated White to the Supreme Court. Six months later Justice Felix Frankfurter also resigned, and the president called on Arthur J. Goldberg to fill that seat.

The two new justices came on the Court at a tumultuous time. Under the leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren during the 1950s and 1960s, the Supreme Court was leading the nation in an effort to improve the lot of dispossessed minorities and other disadvantaged groups. A majority of the justices embraced an activist role as civil rights confrontations, student anti-war protests, and other struggles shook America. A minority of the Court urged greater restraint. Goldberg aligned himself with the activists, and White tended to side with the proponents of judicial self-restraint.

By the 1970s and 1980s, a new conservative Court majority emerged, with White often a part of it. He did not adhere rigidly to any ideological position and often represented a vital swing vote in close decisions. But on key issues, he tended to side with the conservatives. He was one of two dissenters in the Court's landmark decision approving a woman's right to abortion, Roe v. Wade (1977) and remained a consistent foe of abortion rights in subsequent cases. White opposed broad use of affirmative action, favored closer ties between church and state, and strongly sided with law enforcement officials on law-and-order issues. He rarely ventured to overturn laws passed by Congress. In his most personal opinion, in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), he argued that states are free to ban sodomy and oral sex because there is a long tradition of intolerance against homosexuality.

White's pragmatic approach to law did not sit well with critics. "White was uninterested in articulating a constitutional vision, " author Jeffrey Rosen wrote in The New Republic of April 12, 1993. "Despite his ability as a first-rate legal technician, White never transcended his initial incarnation as the jock justice… . White's jurisprudence … was essentially reactive and obsessed with scoring points…. Despite his reputation for independent voting, White's lack of an independent vision reduced him to defining himself in relation to those with more coherent views."

In 1993 White retired after 31 years on the Supreme Court. His career as athlete, attorney, and justice was unique in American history.

Further Reading

White's entry in The Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 1789-1969, Their Lives and Major Opinions, Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, Volume IV (1969), provides an excellent overview from his birth to the end of the Warren Court era. Volume V of the same series, edited by Leon Friedman, examines White's contribution to the Court from 1969 to 1978. For treatment of his place on the Warren Court see Bernard Schwartz, Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court - A Judicial Biography (1983). White's role on the Burger Court is discussed in Vincent Blasi, The Burger Court, The Counter Revolution That Wasn't (1983). A critical assessment of his tenure as justice is Jeffrey Rosen, The New Republic (April 12, 1993).

mayor

Personal Information

Born Michael Reed White, August 13, 1951, in Cleveland, OH; son of Robert and Audrey (Silver) White; married Tamera Kay (third wife).
Education: Ohio State University, B.A., 1973, M.P.A., 1974.
Politics: Democrat.
Religion: Baptist.

Career

Special assistant, mayor's office, Columbus, OH, 1974-76; Cleveland City Council, administrative assistant, 1976-77, city council member, 1978-84; sales manager, Burks Electric Company, 1982-85; partner, Beehive and Doan Partnership, 1983-84; state senator from 21st District in Ohio Senate, Columbus, 1984-89; mayor of Cleveland, 1990--. Former fellow of the Academy for Contemporary Problems, Columbus; member of board of directors, Glenville Development Corporation, beginning 1978; writer on issues of urban renewal.

Life's Work

In 1965, Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland, becoming the first African American to hold this office in any major U.S. city. Michael White was only 14 years old at the time, yet even at this young age he knew he wanted to follow in Stokes's footsteps. Twenty-four years later, White's goal was realized when he became Cleveland's second black mayor.

White took over the leadership of Cleveland at a crucial point in the city's history. His predecessor, George Voinovich, had helped rebuild Cleveland's financial base and national reputation after the disastrous term of Dennis Kucinich, during which the city went bankrupt. Yet Voinovich's focus on investments in the downtown area had left a dichotomy between a thriving central business district and poverty-stricken neighborhoods rampant with drugs and crime. In spite of Cleveland's recovery from economic collapse, when White was elected in 1989 a full 40 percent of the city's population lived at or below the poverty line. Yet, White's political savvy, experience, and energy made him a symbol of hope and change for many of Cleveland's poor; as one East Side resident told the Chicago Tribune a few days before the election, "I feel Mike White is the person who can bring this city together racially and economically."

Michael White was born in Cleveland in 1951 and was raised in the East Side neighborhood where he still makes his home. He was educated at Ohio State University, first earning a B.A. in education and a year later a master's degree in public administration. He began his political career in 1974 by becoming a special assistant for the mayor's office in Columbus, Ohio. He then became an administrative assistant for the Cleveland City Council and, from 1978 to 1984, served on the council itself. White spent over four years in Columbus as a state senator, and then, in the fall of 1989, entered Cleveland's mayoral race.

White's emergence as a top candidate in Cleveland's October primary caused a considerable stir. Before his entrance in the arena, the race for mayor had been seen mainly as a contest between controversial black City Council president George L. Forbes, White's senior by 20 years, and three white candidates. Forbes, a longtime fixture on Cleveland's political scene with 27 years of experience on the council, had won the support of much of the city's black population but had alienated many white voters with his volatile temper and strong, often profane language--shown in incidents such as his throwing of a chair at a fellow councilman while calling him a "mulatto punk." According to the New York Times, former Cleveland mayor Stokes once called Forbes a "foul-mouthed, uncouth, unregenerated politician of the most despicable sort." White, on the other hand, was, according to the Washington Post, "the only candidate with support across racial lines." When the dust settled after the October 3rd primary, the two black candidates, both Democrats, remained to square off against each other.

The 1989 mayoral campaign became one of the ugliest in Cleveland's history. Just a few days after the primary the Forbes camp accused White of abusing his wife and ignoring housing codes on some of his inner-city property. White denied the charges and countered the attack by claiming that Forbes had used his office for personal gain and had used his wife, Mary, as a "front person" for improper investments. White also began to undermine Forbes's support in the black community by portraying him as an elitist who favored tax breaks for downtown developers while ignoring the poorer neighborhoods. The Forbes campaign was then dealt a severe blow when outgoing mayor Voinovich--considered an important ally in the older candidate's campaign--refused to endorse either nominee.

Ultimately Forbes's abrasive personality was his undoing. Although he tried to soften his image in TV commercials and justify his antics as being, as he told the New York Times, "all show-biz," the election became, as Cuyahoga County Republican party chairman Robert E. Hughes told the Chicago Tribune, "a referendum on George Forbes." Voters flocked to the polls not so much because they liked White but because they disliked his opponent; in the end the younger candidate was easily elected.

In his inaugural address--as quoted by the Christian Science Monitor-- White focused on a topic that would become a central issue for his administration: the future of Cleveland's young people. "We can spend our money on roads and bridges and sewer systems as we must," the new mayor said, "but we can never afford to forget that these children remain the true infrastructure of our city's future." In keeping with this commitment, White has worked hard to upgrade public education and has supported the development of new jobs programs. As he told Fortune, "We should create a work program and show every able-bodied person that we have the time and patience to train them. And we should start people young. In Cleveland we want to guarantee every kid graduating from high school a job or a chance to go to college."

The White administration has also focused on creating a balance between Cleveland's prosperous downtown area and its deprived inner-city neighborhoods. "We do not accept that ours must be a two-tier community with a sparkling new downtown surrounded by vacant stores and whitewashed windows," he pledged in his inaugural address. White feels that Cleveland's business community must shoulder much of the responsibility for unifying the city; he told the Christian Science Monitor: "You can't have a great town with only a great downtown. I've said to corporate Cleveland over and over again that I'm going to work on the agenda of downtown Cleveland, but I also expect them to work on the agenda of neighborhood rebuilding." To this end White has supported the development of the Lake Erie waterfront and the completion of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, predicted to become one of Cleveland's major tourist attractions.

The safety of Cleveland's residents has also been an important focal point of White's program. "Safety is the right of every American," he told the Christian Science Monitor. "A 13-year-old drug pusher on the corner where I live is a far greater danger to me and this city than [Iraqi strongman] Saddam Hussein will ever be. What are America's priorities?"

White has also tried to address head-on Cleveland's longtime difficulties with racial tension. With a population fairly evenly balanced between blacks and whites, the city has always endured periodic outbursts of racial violence. White's approach to the problem has been to focus on solidarity; he noted in the Christian Science Monitor, "We are a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious community. It is a strength and not a weakness." White has portrayed himself as a "unifier" in the tradition of Mayor Curt Schmoke of Baltimore, and, as he told the New York Times, he envisions a city "free of division, free of hatred, free of bickering, one Cleveland for blacks, whites and Hispanics." Indeed, one of his earliest campaign promises was to revise Cleveland's controversial busing laws, a failed attempt by the U.S. District Court to desegregate Cleveland schools in the late 1970s.

White's administration has not been without its difficulties. In April of 1991, while hosting a meeting of the nation's black mayors in Cleveland, White learned that he had been summoned to appear before a county grand jury on charges that, eight years earlier, he had improperly used his position as chairman of the City Council's community development committee to aid the development of real estate projects in which he was an investor. Although the charges were later dropped, the timing of the subpoena was an embarrassment to White and his administration and led other black mayors to speculate that the incident might have been racially motivated. As Emanuel Cleaver, the mayor of Kansas City, told the New York Times, "I thought the timing of the subpoena was as tacky as it gets. Every black mayor I have talked with, and many of my white supporters, have told me enough about black officials becoming targeted for investigation that I have become as paranoid as I can get." However, White has been able to put the incident behind him and focus on the immediate concerns of his city.

The election of Bill Clinton as U.S. president in November of 1992 was greeted by White with particular enthusiasm. Long a critic of the federal government's apparent lack of support for the rebuilding of the nation's troubled cities, White had frequently lashed out against the administration of former President George Bush; for example, when he learned that the Persian Gulf War was costing the United States $500 million a day, he was outraged. "I'm the mayor of one of the largest cities in the country while we have an administration that is completely oblivious to the problems of human beings in this country," he told the Washington Post. "I sit here like everyone else, watching CNN, watching a half-billion dollar a day investment in Iraq and Kuwait, and I can't get a half-million increase in investment in Cleveland or any other city." White became an outspoken supporter of Clinton, and, as he told the Los Angeles Times, saw the new administration as an opportunity to "turn the boat around and get it going in the right way."

White was especially optimistic about Clinton's plans to abolish the existing welfare system. Two years earlier he had told Fortune that "our welfare system doesn't teach people to be independent or think for themselves. It just teaches them how to read the calendar and leads nowhere but back to the welfare office at the first of the month. In the years ahead, government must assist, cajole, and force these people back into the mainstream and give them a stake in society." He strongly praised Clinton's plans to substitute job training, child care, and other reforms to bring welfare recipients back into the work force.

White has also supported other elements of Clinton's domestic policy plan, which the president titled "Putting People First." Along with other mayors, he is anxious to see Clinton follow through on his promises to restore the economic vitality of the nation's cities by increasing funds for the building and maintenance of urban roads, bridges, and sewage treatment plants; building a network of community development banks to loan money to entrepreneurs; and putting more city police officers on the beat. Although, as he told the Los Angeles Times, White considers himself a "pragmatic idealist" and knows that "it won't happen overnight, or even in one term," he intends to do what he can to hold Clinton to his pledges. "If Bill Clinton put 'Putting People First' into a bill," White continued, "we would support it and I don't mean just support it like, 'Dear Senator, we support it.' I mean down there in Washington, in their face, saying, 'gentlemen, ladies, we support this and you've got to do it.'"

Yet, though White has remained hopeful about an increase in support by the federal government, throughout his administration he has held the philosophy that state and city governments must in many ways fend for themselves. He commented in Fortune that "the answer to our problems doesn't lie in Washington. It lies in state capitals and city halls. While I'd like to have a stronger partnership with the federal government, I recognize that we're going to have to improve our quality of life ourselves, or it's not going to happen."

The city of Cleveland faces many challenges as it moves toward the twenty-first century. In spite of its renewed vitality in recent years, the city continues to be seen by many Americans as something of a cultural and economic wasteland. With the dedication and enthusiasm of its mayor, as well as that of the city's population at large, it may one day win the recognition it deserves; until that time White will continue to work toward building a thriving and harmonious urban center. "We're a scrapper city," he told the Christian Science Monitor with characteristic self-confidence. "We don't know the meaning of failure."

Awards

Named outstanding young leader, Cleveland Jaycees, 1979; service award, East Side Jaycees, 1979; named an outstanding young man of America, 1985; outstanding service award, Cleveland Chapter of the National Association of Black Veterans, 1985; community service award, East Side Jaycees.

Further Reading

Sources

• Chicago Tribune, October 29, 1989.
• Christian Science Monitor, August 12, 1991.
• Ebony, February 1990.
• Economist, November 11, 1989.
• Fortune, March 26, 1990.
• Los Angeles Times, November 21, 1992.
• New York Times, October 23, 1989; April 27, 1991; May 16, 1991.
• Washington Post, October 2, 1989; January 24, 1991; June 9, 1992.

— Jeffrey Taylor

For more information on Byron Raymond White, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: June 8, 1917, Fort Collins, Colo.
• Education: University of Colorado, B.A., 1938; Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University, 1939; Yale Law School, LL.B., 1946
• Previous government service: law clerk to Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, 1946–47; deputy U.S. attorney general, 1961–62
• Appointed by President John F. Kennedy Mar. 30, 1962; replaced Charles E. Whittaker, who retired
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Apr. 11, 1962, by a voice vote; retired June 28, 1993
• Died: April 15, 2002, Denver, Colo.

Byron R. White was an excellent scholar-athlete at the University of Colorado. He ranked first in his class as a scholar, and he was a star on the varsity teams in football, basketball, and baseball. His prowess as a running back in football brought him national fame as an All American and earned him the nickname of Whizzer.

After graduation from college Whizzer White played one season for the Pittsburgh Steelers and led the National Football League in yards gained as a running back. Then he went to England as a Rhodes Scholar to study at Oxford. There he met John F. Kennedy, a future President of the United States.

During World War II, White joined the navy and served in the Pacific theater of the war, where he again met John Kennedy, an officer in the navy. Later, when Kennedy campaigned for President, Byron White supported him, which led to his appointment to the Supreme Court by Kennedy.

Justice White consistently supported equal protection of the law and civil rights of minorities, especially black Americans. However, he was cautious about expanding the rights of people suspected of criminal activity. For example, he dissented from the Warren Court majority in Miranda v. Arizona (1966) to argue that the Court's decision would unduly hamper efforts by police to obtain a confession from those suspected of criminal behavior. And he wrote for the Burger Court majority in United States v. Leon (1984) to establish a “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule established by the Warren Court in Mapp v. Ohio (1961). The Leon case established that when police act on good faith to obtain evidence of criminal behavior without a valid search warrant, the evidence does not have to be excluded from the trial. Justice White also wrote for the Court in New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985), which permitted public school officials to disregard the 4th Amendment protection against “unwarranted searches and seizures” when inspecting the personal belongings of students in school who are presumed to be hiding evidence of unlawful behavior.

See also New Jersey v. T.L.O.; United States v. Leon

Sources

• Dennis J. Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White: A Portrait of Justice Byron R. White (New York: Free Press, 1998). Daniel C. Kramer, “Justice Byron R. White: Good Friend to Polity and Solon”, in The Burger Court: Political and Judicial Profiles, edited by Charles M. Lamb and Stephen C. Halpern (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991)

1917–2002, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1962–93), b. Fort Collins, Colo. An All-America football player nicknamed “Whizzer” who later starred as a professional, White was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa at the Univ. of Colorado, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1938. He then went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar (1939–40), and received his law degree at Yale in 1946 after serving in the navy in World War II. White served (1946–47) as law clerk for Chief Justice Frederick Vinson before going to Denver to practice corporate law. He supported John F. Kennedy for the presidency in 1960, and was appointed deputy attorney general in 1961. In 1962, Kennedy named him to succeed Charles E. Whittaker on the Supreme Court. After President Nixon's conservative appointments to the court, White became known as a “swing” justice, generally voting with the liberals on civil-rights cases, but with the conservatives on personal liberty and criminal-justice issues. He was one of two justices to dissent from the Roe v. Wade (1973) abortion decision, and in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) he wrote a decision that upheld Georgia's sodomy statutes. White retired from the Court in 1993.

Bibliography

See D. J. Hutchinson, The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White (1998).

As an associate justice, Byron Raymond White sat on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993. White had an eclectic career. He was a college and pro football star during the 1930s and 1940s and an assistant attorney general under Robert F. Kennedy from 1960 until 1962, the year his friend President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the Supreme Court. As a justice, White charted a pragmatic and low-key course on the bench: he enunciated no single judicial philosophy, although judicial restraint sometimes appeared as a feature of his reasoning. For part of his career, he was seen as a moderate. Toward the end, however, he voted conservatively on social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and homosexual rights.

Born on June 8, 1917, in Fort Collins, Colorado, White was the son of working class parents. As a youth, he picked beets in the poor community, but he excelled in athletics and scholastics. He attended the University of Colorado on an academic scholarship and in 1937, became the premier running back in college football. So accomplished was "Whizzer" White on the gridiron that when he threatened not to play in the Cotton Bowl—because it would interfere with his studying—the state's governor intervened in order to convince him to play. He graduated in 1938 as class valedictorian.

White's journey to the bench was not direct. In 1939 he accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in England, where he became a lifelong friend of John F. Kennedy. He subsequently played in the National Football League and led the league in rushing while also studying law at Yale University, where he graduated with high honors in 1946. During World War II White joined the Navy and served in the Pacific. After the war, he clerked for Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson from 1946 to 1947. For the next thirteen years, White practiced law in Denver, Colorado. His organizational support for the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy led to his being appointed second in charge of the Justice Department in 1960. After two years of selecting judges and helping steer the department's support of the civil rights movement, White was nominated to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Charles Whittaker.

White's tenure on the Court was marked by judicial pragmatism and unpredictability. Defying expectations that he would be a centrist, White swayed between liberal and conservative positions. He consistently supported the constitutionality of civil rights reforms during the mid-1960s in cases dealing with voting rights. Thirty years later, he continued to take a firm stance on the issue of school desegregation: in 1992 he wrote the majority opinion in U.S. v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717, 112 S. Ct. 2727, 120 L. Ed. 2d 575 (1992) which ordered Mississippi to take additional steps to desegregate its state colleges. White's tendency to vote conservatively also became apparent early in his tenure on the Court. In 1966 he dissented from the Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), which established the so-called Miranda Rule requiring police officers to read arrested persons their constitutional rights. Believing that it would only weaken the ability of the police to do their job, White called the deci- sion "a deliberate calculus to prevent interrogations, to reduce the incidence of confessions and pleas of guilty and to increase the number of trials."

This conservatism was grounded in pragmatism. In 1972 White was one of two justices dissenting from the majority decision that established a woman's right to abortion (Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 [1973]). His four-page dissent avoided the moral issues involved and attacked the majority's reading of the constitution: they had exceeded the Court's power. He could find no constitutional basis for "valu[ing] the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries." Similarly, his 1986 majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S. Ct. 2841, 92 L. Ed. 2d 140 (1986) dispassionately held that a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy—oral and anal sex— did not violate the constitutional rights of homosexuals. He simply found no "fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy" and refused to find a new right in the constitution's Due Process Clause—doing so, he wrote, would make the Court vulnerable to criticisms of judicial activism.

In the 1980s and 1990s White's liberal tendencies were all but exhausted. He frequently sided with the conservative voting bloc on the Court. In case after case, he joined the conservative majority in opposing abortion rights, curtailing affirmative action programs, restricting federal civil rights laws, and allowing the use of illegally-acquired police evidence in court. As was his wont, he uniquely refused to read his opinions from the bench and, instead, merely indicated whether the Court upheld or reversed the decisions of lower courts. He retired in 1993.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)