June 24, 2003  GEPHARDT RESPONDS -- well, via a spokesman quoted
in ABC's The Note:   Yeah. But that's certainly not what
Gephardt was talking about. I don't think I can improve on
Eugene Volokh's comments on this:  Harry Truman's executive
order was very important -- but it had nothing to do with an
attempt to overcome a contrary Supreme Court decision. It's hard
to see how it's evidence that a President can successfully
"overcome" Supreme Court decisions that prohibit things that he
thinks are good. (The Court had ruled, 50 years earlier, that
segregation was permissible, but it certainly didn't say it was
mandated, and Truman's court order wasn't remotely a response to
that decision. In fact, by the date of Truman's order, the Court
had begun its path towards desegregation, see, e.g., Missouri ex
rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) and Sipuel v. Oklahoma (1948), so
Truman's decision was actually quite consistent with the trend
of Supreme Court decisions.)  Furthermore, Gephardt was speaking
about the University o