Breyer: Courts are not political - the press just portrays them that way
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor just spoke with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. And despite earlier comments by O’Connor that having another woman on the Supreme Court would be a good thing, both justices bristled at the idea that the current Court’s makeup - with only one woman - is somehow politically incorrect.
“Judges are there to protect people’s rights and to ensure that they are treated fairly,” Breyer told Mitchell.
When Mitchell asked the justices if they believed, as some commentators have suggested, that the Court is leaning farther to the ideological right - as evidenced by close rulings including this week’s decision in the Ricci case - Breyer said that notion was a media creation.
“One reason I think it is so important for people to understand in high school how courts work is because otherwise all they will read is political analyses [in the media] about how courts decided,” Breyer said. “You are the ones…the press and others, who continue to label the decisions in terms of their political impact. In my opinion, that is not what courts do. … Basically, they are there to protect people irrespective of politics, irrespective of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, whether you are a man or a woman, whether your race is black or white.
“If you are in front of a judge,” Breyer continued, “even if you are the most unpopular person in the United 
States, you are guaranteed a fair trial. And you’d better have a public that understands that is what our courts are there to do.”
O’Connor, who has for many years advocated for more civics education, echoed Breyer’s sentiment.
“Half of our states no longer make the teaching if civics and American history a requirement in high schools,” O’Connor said. “Only a third of the people can even name the three branches of government, let alone say what they do. We are in a crisis.”
