Rotten Apples - Time Magazine article on Silicon Valley's war on teachers

[Jim Lane]

3. A clear case of judicial activism.

You can argue that the best education comes when teachers have no tenure, so that bad ones can be removed. You can also argue that the best education comes when teachers have tenure, so that they can't be wantonly removed based on politics or other extraneous factors. What's obvious, though, is that neither of these positions is part of the California constitution, which merely calls for “basic equality of educational opportunity”.

Choosing how best to meet that goal is quite obviously a legislative function.

Now let's see how many Republicans who decry "judicial activism" will go on the warpath about this decision. Barry Goldwater famously said that "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," and I think his modern heirs will see no vice in judicial activism in the defense of union-busting.