Margaret Marshall: Bathrooms Are Focus of Segregation (Audio)

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Charlie Palotin. That's a Bloomberg Business Flash. You're listening to Taking stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Fox on Bloomberg Radio. The first woman to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, the first Justice of the United States to issue an opinion legalizing same sex marriage, and tonight she will be one of the three outstanding a Greater Boston leaders inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Bostonians

at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner. We're continuing our very special live broadcast here Katheen Hayes and Pim Fox, and we're very pleased now to welcome to the show, Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall. Thank you, Kathleen, and thank you Pim. So you are a South African native, you first made your mark as an anti apartheid activist. Tell us a bit about that and how you got

from South Africa to Boston. I grew up in a small, tiny village in will South Africa, and my parents were not political activists, um and I was surrounded by a partyit and it's amazing how one doesn't see often what is happening right in front of your eyes unless it somehow pointed out to you. At that time, racism was pervasive. There were no black students allowed in my school, or to own property or even in the church that I went to. Black South Africans couldn't travel in their own country,

and of course they couldn't vote. And then came the greatest change in my life. I received a scholarship to come as a high school exchange student to the United States in the early nineteen sixties. President John F. Kennedy was president. That certainly ages me, um, but it was a wonderful time, and it was here that I fell in love with the principles that have guided this great nation since its founding. Equal justice under law for all,

equal opportunity. I was exhilarated. I went back Kathleen to South Africa. I finished my college studies there, but I had had my eyes opened in the United States, and I became very active in opposing a partyit By then, Nelson Mandela and all of his colleagues have been sentenced to life in prison. And again, I came from a non political family. UM. My father was a corporate executive of my mother was a stay at home mom. I had a very comfortable life that I just couldn't tolerate

what I saw going on around me any longer. And when it became unsafe for me to continue to be in South Africa, I was fortunate enough to be given a scholarship to come and study here in Boston at Harvard. And that's the sort of capsule story of how I got here. Take us back just for a second to the year two thousand and three and decision, and that will help bring us to the issues related to current events surrounding North Carolina. Okay, tell us about that decision

in two thousand and three. In two thousand and free Um, several same sex couples they were not being married, had filed a lawsuit in the Trial court in Massachusetts. A lawsuit had actually been filed seven years, several years before, asking for the court to decide under the Massachusetts Constitution that to deny them the protection and benefits of marriage

with the violation of our equality provision. The Massachusetts Constitution, which is older than the United States Constitution, begins with the words all people are born free and equal, and in essence the plaintiffs will look into though that provision, in particular to say, um that they should have the right to be married to each other. It was the first time, not the first time that a court had

considered the question. Vermont had faced the same question just a few years earlier, and in fact, a decade earlier, the Hawaii Supreme Court had ruled on a similar issue, but UM. In Hawaii, the the interim judgment of the court had been overturned by the legislature. And in Vermont, UM the Vermont legislature and governor had endorsed civil unions and UM that had put an end to that court case.

So this was the first time that there was, as you know, a sort of the requests that the court decides, specifically about marriage for same sex couples. UM and Mike Carls and I on the Supreme Judicial Court, in a split decision fortively, the seven justices who sit on boncoll at the time decided that the Massachusetts Constitution did, in fact, um enable same sex couples to be married. Well, of course that certainly open the door. You can you you

paved the way. You were a trailblazer with that. When you look at North Carolina. The latest news is the US Justice Department is suing North Carolina over its law regulat in the bathroom choices of transgender people. They call the violation of the Federal Civil Rights Act. They're seeking injunction, where if you were the justice weighing in on that or advising either side. How would you be breaking down

the issues here, Kathleen, You know it's difficult. UM. I don't know how to decide because you have to read all the beliefs. But I would say this, there was some um suggestion along the way that gender the not include sexual orientation and all transgender people. I think that has largely been put to rest by the United States Supreme Court Justice Kennedy in his decisions involving same sex couples.

I don't think any reasonable argument can be made anymore that somehow the Equal Protection claus and or Title seven, whichever way they're doing it, that's the non discriminate federal

non discrimination provision. It does not cover transgender people. And I think what I find strange here is and Attorney General United States Attorney General Lebretta Lynch made this point yesterday, but I had made it before, which is it is very reminiscent of the public accommodation sites that were fought when they're when various places excluded Black Americans from going into motels, or from swimming and swimming pools, or from

going into toilets. UM. I often wonder, and it perplexes me what it is in our nation that often makes toilets and access to toilets where one is fighting about, you know, basic equality rights. It seems to me that um raally, I don't I don't know of any any study anywhere with anybody encountering difficulties in using public bathrooms or bathrooms and in places of employment. Don't forget the

places of employment as well. And yet we've seen focused on that when we are somehow trying to segregate people just because of who they are, uh, you know, and that is so conquerry to our long tradition in the United States. We we do it slowly. I mean, to give full meaning to equal justice under law for all has taken us, you know, a couple of centuries, but

it is clearly we've always moved in one direction. Ultimately, we as a society, we ultimately do not tolerate treating anybody because of their national origin, their Japanese heritage in the World War two, whatever it is, differently in asking

them to be treated differently. And I think to me, when I listened to the discussions, and I haven't reviewed obviously either of the complaints, but it seems to me that we are HARKing back to a past that we often wish we had put behind us rather than moving forward. Just to learn a little bit more about your thinking, Chief Justice. Um the apparent deadlock in Washington over President Obama's nomination to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

Merck Garland. Yes, what do you make of that process or or a non process? And I'm only gonna give you about the seconds. It saddens me. Having a vibrant judicially is the foundation of what has, among other things, made ours a great, great nation. Uh, And I think it does not serve any purpose. And by the way, particularly businesses and entities who are trying to follow the law in the United States, to have a Supreme Court with only eight justices and they may not be able

to agree on fundamental questions. And so I think that it doesn't reflect well. The Senate should the Senate Judiciary Committee should at least move forward in my judgment, and the matter brought to the Senate floor, so that we can have all free branches of government functioning well, which is really what our democracy is all about. Well, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. Chief Justice Margaret H. Martial former Chief Justice of Supreme Court

of Massachusetts now Senior Council Chot Hall and Stewart. We are broadcasting live from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center before tonight's Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce two sixteen Annual Meeting