WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST remains on the federal bench in large part because his fellow citizens emphatically reject the chief justice's fundamental values. Most Americans believe that decent societies do not fire cancer patients who can perform their jobs with a little assistance. Justice Rehnquist disagrees.
His previous opinions insist that state governments remain constitutionally free to cashier the ill and disabled whenever their termination might promote government efficiency. If these were our nation's basic principles, surely an overwhelming consensus would demand the resignation or impeachment of a federal justice who, because of cancer, does not attend court regularly, no longer writes his fair share of opinions and pens weak opinions when he does write.
Americans believe that government efficiency must sometimes be tempered with humanity. Republicans and Democrats in Congress articulated this national consensus when they passed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
A crucial provision of that measure requires state and private employers to make "reasonable accommodations" for disabled workers who are otherwise capable of performing their professional duties. Severe sacrifices were ruled out. No employer need accommodate a disabled worker when that would cause "undue hardship." Minor inconvenience, however, was not deemed a sufficient justification for failing to hire or maintain disabled workers otherwise able to perform their jobs.
Patricia Garrett soon learned that Justice Rehnquist regards government efficiency as the higher constitutional value.
Ms. Garrett sued under the ADA after she was demoted solely because her supervisor thought a cancer survivor could not handle being director of nursing at the University of Alabama's medical center in Birmingham. The chief justice rejected her claim.
Justice Rehnquist maintained that the federal government could not constitutionally pass laws requiring state governments to respect broadly shared notions of decency. The 14th Amendment authorizes Congress "to enforce, by appropriate legislation," the constitutional guarantee of "equal protection of the laws," but Justice Rehnquist insisted that Congress had not demonstrated the pattern of irrational discrimination against the ill and disabled necessary to justify such legislation.
