My friend Dick Johnson sent along a \u201cwhat should we celebrate\u201d list for July 4.\u00a0 It includes \u201cthe waves of immigrants from all parts of the world who struggled to accept each other and find a place in this country,\u201d escaped slaves and their allies, working people who championed reforms and the right to organize, women who expanded our understanding of their gender, and gays and lesbians who fought for and won the right to marry.\u00a0 The list goes on, and we\u2019re encouraged to raise a fork at the dinner table in salute.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to raise my fork in celebration of courageous judges, one in particular, Paul Egly, who died this week at age 97.\u00a0 Egly oversaw the Los Angeles school desegregation case.\u00a0 He took the case as a well liked judge and rapidly became what the L.A. Times <\/em>called \u201cone of the most unpopular judges in Southern California.\u201d\u00a0 The judge who initially ruled in the case was voted out of office and Egly faced a recall and multiple death threats.\u00a0 Egly did worry about voter opposition and an angry public, but as he told the Times <\/em>in 1977, \u201cI have been a judge for a long time, and a judge\u2019s job is to judge.\u201d<\/p>\n I met him a couple of times as he tried to get the parties in the L.A. integration case to work toward a mutually agreed solution.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 Other judges had fallen into the trap of mandating a solution and virtually taking over the management of a school district.\u00a0 I remember one lunch where he said, \u201cWhat if I, say \u2018integrate this way,\u2019 and the district says, \u2018up yours judge.\u2019\u00a0 What do I do then?\u201d<\/p>\n The politics of race ultimately swamped his efforts.\u00a0 In 1980, California voters approved an initiative barring mandatory busing to integrate schools, one of the primary means of integration available in Los Angeles.\u00a0When the state Supreme Court upheld the law, Egly recused himself from the case.<\/p>\n The politics of race dominated the L.A. school district for at least another decade, and its schools remain highly segregated.<\/p>\n Egly\u2019s life and work reminds us that judges are called on to solve the problems of today.\u00a0Conservative or liberal, they can\u2019t dodge that obligation.\u00a0 Judges will always have to operate out of the public\u2019s comfort zone, and out of their own.\u00a0Regardless of what litmus tests voters or politicians use to choose them, they will soon face situations that fail to fit their preconceptions or easy remedies.\u00a0 That\u2019s when judging becomes courageous, or not.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n