Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
insupportable on the record before us, and does not justify the majority's parsimonious construction of an important federal statute.38
I respectfully dissent.
Justice O'Connor, with whom Justice Blackmun joins, dissenting.
Petitioners act in organized groups to overwhelm local police forces and physically blockade the entrances to respondents' clinics with the purpose of preventing women from exercising their legal rights. Title 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) provides a federal remedy against private conspiracies aimed at depriving any person or class of persons of the "equal protection of the laws," or of "equal privileges and immunities under the laws." In my view, respondents' injuries and petitioners' activities fall squarely within the ambit of this statute.
I
The Reconstruction Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Act (Act), 17 Stat. 13, to combat the chaos that paralyzed the post-War South. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 276-279 (1985); Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U. S. 325, 336-339 (1983). Section 2 of the Act extended the protection of federal courts to those who effectively were prevented from exercising their civil rights by the threat of mob violence. Although the immediate purpose of § 1985(3) was to combat animosity against blacks and
38 Justice Kennedy's reminder that the Court's denial of any relief to individual respondents does not prevent their States from calling on the United States, through its Attorney General, for help, ante, at 287-288, is both puzzling and ironic, given the role this administration has played in this and related cases in support of Operation Rescue. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae; Women's Health Care Services v. Operation Rescue-National, 773 F. Supp., at 269-270; cf. Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae in Griffin v. Breckenridge, O. T. 1970, No. 144.
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