Brennan Biography Shows Disconnect Between His Public Opinions, Personal Actions
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote a landmark opinion in 1973 criticizing the country’s “long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination,” but three years before he had quickly dismissed the idea of hiring a female law clerk.
He relented and hired a woman after the opinion, but it took some prodding from a former clerk who warned Brennan that his refusal to hire a woman was sexist, contrary to government policy and “literally unconstitutional,” the Washington Post reports. The disconnect between Brennan’s opinions and actions is chronicled in a new biography, Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion, by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermeil.
Stern told the NBC’s Niteside blog that Brennan found it difficult to reconcile his conservative views with his liberal opinions. “He was a champion of women’s rights who was reluctant to hire female clerks in his own chambers,” Stern said. “He signed the Roe v. Wade abortion decision but was personally uncomfortable with abortion. He championed the rights of the press, but no one could make him more furious than reporters.”
The book is based on 1986 interviews and personal papers Brennan gave to Wermeil, then a Wall Street Journal reporter. A New York Times review says the interviews were “very likely limited by the fact that despite his gregarious exterior, Brennan was intensely private about everything from his wife Marjorie’s longstanding drinking problem to his persistent financial woes.” The book quotes a former clerk, who said of Brennan, “So much of who he really was, was covered up by the backslapping leprechaun exterior.”
