I can't mention my least favorite paragraph from an education-related court ruling without also mentioning my favorite: in 1962, Mississippi's Governor Ross Barnett was charged with criminal contempt for using his office to support the segregationists at Ole Miss who were refusing to admit James Meredith. The case didn't reach the Fifth Circuit until three years later, at which point they decided that it would be better simply to dismiss it.
Judge John Minor Wisdom, who opposed the dismissal, ended his dissent with this:
There is an unedifying moral to be drawn from this case of The Man in High Office Who Defied the Nation: The mills of the law grind slowly — but not inexorably. If they grind slowly enough, they may even come, unaccountably, to a gradual stop, short of the trial and judgment an ordinary citizen expects when accused of criminal contempt. There is just one compensating thought: Hubris is grist for other mills, which grind exceedingly small and sure.
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