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Stevens, J., dissenting
lum far beyond a neutral attitude and endorsed a policy that strongly favors private arbitration.14 The strength of that policy preference has been echoed in the recent Court of Appeals opinions on which the Court relies.15 In a sense,
therefore, the Court is standing on its own shoulders when it points to those cases as the basis for its narrow construction of the exclusion in § 1. There is little doubt that the Court's interpretation of the Act has given it a scope far beyond the expectations of the Congress that enacted it. See, e. g., Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, 17-21 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 21-36 (O'Connor, J., dissenting).
It is not necessarily wrong for the Court to put its own imprint on a statute. But when its refusal to look beyond the raw statutory text enables it to disregard countervailing considerations that were expressed by Members of the enacting Congress and that remain valid today, the Court misuses its authority. As the history of the legislation indicates, the potential disparity in bargaining power between individual employees and large employers was the source of organized labor's opposition to the Act, which it feared would require courts to enforce unfair employment contracts. That same concern, as Justice Souter points out, see post, at 138, n. 2, underlay Congress' exemption of contracts of
14 See, e. g., Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20 (1991); Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477 (1989); Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220 (1987); Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U. S. 614 (1985); Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984); Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U. S. 1 (1983); Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U. S. 395 (1967).
15 See, e. g., O'Neil v. Hilton Head Hosp., 115 F. 3d 272, 274 (CA4 1997) ("The circuit courts have uniformly reasoned that the strong federal policy in favor of arbitration requires a narrow reading of this section 1 exemption. Thus, those courts have limited the section 1 exemption to seamen, railroad workers, and other workers actually involved in the interstate transportation of goods").
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