It’s not clear to me that there is anything particularly wrong with assailing Thurgood Marshall for his approach to the law as a Supreme Court Justice. Behind the labels “activist” and “strict constructionist” lie some serious ideas about the role of the Court in the constitutional scheme and the life of the country. Marshall, great man as he was, is generally acknowledged to have been a less than great legal intellect who tended to write his opinions in a result-oriented manner. You and I may applaud the results he sought (I think history largely applauds those results), but still question whether that manner of decision making at the highest level is consistent with the obligations of a Supreme Court Justice. It’s not hard to envision the potential ruination of the institution if unfettered results-oriented judicial decision making became the norm. After all, the political viewpoints of the Justices will swing from pole to pole and all points in between over time, so that activism that you and I applaud will be replaced with activism that we revile. To me, this is why restraint, respect for precedent, and commitment to sublimating ones political instincts to a proper set of decisional rules is not a “conservative” approach, but the only approach that preserves the power and purpose of the Court as the third branch of government. Love Thurgood Marshall for his sense of justice, love him for his commitment and his honorable conduct, you can still fairly call him out for being “the epitome of a results oriented judge” and in doing so neither be racist nor depart from the truth of the man’s record.