WEIGHING WORDS ON THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held a briefing last week on racial
inequality within the American judicial system. I sure wish Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor could have been called to testify.

O'Connor had spoken briefly about the same subject during a recent
commencement address at George Washington University's law school. But her
carefully chosen words seemed calculated to obscure her real feelings.

"There is sad evidence all across the nation that a substantial number of
our citizens believe our legal and judicial system is unresponsive to them
because of racial bias, that too often equal justice is but an unrealized
slogan," she said.

Now, did that mean O'Connor believes black people merely perceive racial
bias in the legal system, or does she truly understand just how real that
bias is?

Surely, Mary Francis Berry, the determined chairman of the civil rights
commission, would have pressed her for more specificity.

Moreover, other curious minds wanted to know: What impact, if any, will
O'Connor's beliefs about racial discrimination -- whether she thinks it's a
black fact of life or just a figment of the black imagination -- have on her
vote, perhaps the deciding vote, in the upcoming landmark U.S. Supreme Court
ruling on affirmative action?

Of course, by now, there ought to be no question about the reality of
injustice involving blacks.

And if racism can exist in American jurisprudence, where equal treatment is
supposed to be a bedrock principle, then what's to say this cancer of the
soul is not present in other areas of American life?

From imprisoning blacks for the same crimes for which whites receive little
or no punishment to executing a disproportionate number of blacks --
especially when the victims are white -- the evidence of a separate and
unequal justice system is there for all to see.

"Law enforcement people admit that they enforce drug laws more rigorously in
the black community -- they say it's good for the black community," Paul
Butler, a law professor at George Washington University, told the civil
rights commission. "I attended Yale . . . and Harvard Law, and if the [drug]
laws were enforced as selectively on those campuses as they are in black
communities, we'd have a lot more whites in the criminal justice system."

What we have instead is Tulia, Tex., where 12 people -- 11 of them black --
were freed last week after being imprisoned for four years based on the
phony testimony of a white police officer.

Were it not for extraordinary efforts by the NAACP and formidable resources
provided by high-powered law firms in Washington and New York, they'd still
be locked up.

In Benton Harbor, Mich., decades-long black mistrust of police erupted last
week into a riot and even more questionable arrests. In Prince George's
County, the Maryland Court of Appeals recently threw out guilty verdicts in
three trials because police had coerced confessions.

The list goes on and on.

Little wonder how blacks, who make up only 12 percent of the nation's
population, can account for 44 percent of inmates in prisons and jails.

Apparently, this is the kind of affirmative action that causes no
controversy.

But what do such glaring racial disparities say about the United States,
especially at a time when a war has been waged supposedly, among other
reasons, to promote equal rights and freedom abroad?

"Regardless of one's political orientation, these dramatically high rates of
incarceration should be of concern to all Americans," Marc Mauer, assistant
director of the Sentencing Project, told the civil rights commission. "The
jarring contrast of the wealthiest society in human history maintaining the
greatest use of imprisonment presents a clear indication of troubling
circumstances."

Butler called the situation a "national emergency." And he doubted that the
nation would be doing nothing about it if, say, "more white young men were
in prison than in college or half of all young white high school dropouts
were behind bars."

For her part, O'Connor at least broached the subject of racial injustice --
and did so before a diverse audience at a university that supports
affirmative action, no less.

"Use your skills acquired here to help provide both the perception and the
reality of equal justice under law," O'Connor told the graduates.

And now, the nation waits and wonders how she will use her skills to provide
the same.

_____Correction_____

Courtland Milloy's column June 23 incorrectly credited the NAACP with
providing legal assistance to 12 people wrongly imprisoned in Tulia, Tex.
The column should have credited the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund.