Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
The Court recognizes that the requisite animus may "readily be presumed" on the basis of the relationship between the targeted activity and membership in the targeted class. Ante, at 270. But the Court insists that opposition to an act engaged in exclusively by members of a protected class does not involve class-based animus unless the act itself is an "irrational object of disfavor." Ibid. The Court's view requires a subjective judicial interpretation inappropriate in the civil rights context, where what seems rational to an oppressor seems equally irrational to a victim. Opposition to desegregation, and opposition to the voting rights of both African-Americans and women, were certainly at one time considered "rational" propositions. But such propositions were never free of the class-based discrimination from which § 1985(3) protects the members of both classes.
The activity of traveling to a clinic to obtain an abortion is, of course, exclusively performed by women. Opposition to that activity may not be "irrational," but violent interference with it is unquestionably "aimed at" women. The Court offers no justification for its newly crafted suggestion that deliberately imposing a burden on an activity exclusively performed by women is not class-based discrimination unless opposition to the activity is also irrational. The Court is apparently willing to presume discrimination only when opposition to the targeted activity is—in its eyes— wholly pretextual: that is, when it thinks that no rational person would oppose the activity, except as a means of achieving a separate and distinct goal.23 The Court's analysis makes sense only if every member of a protected class
23 The limitations of this analysis are apparent from the example the Court invokes: "A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews." Ante, at 270. The yarmulke tax would not become less of a tax on Jews if the taxing authorities really did wish to burden the wearing of yarmulkes. And the fact that many Jews do not wear yarmulkes—like the fact that many women do not seek abortions—would not prevent a finding that the tax—like petitioners' blockade—targeted a particular class.
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