Thurgood Marshall was one of the greatest Supreme Court litigators of all time – certainly the greatest of his generation. His place would have been secure in history even if he had not become the first African-American elevated to the US Supreme Court, where he was, in my opinion, a mediocre justice because his ability to use his extraordinary talents as an advocate was constrained by his role as a judge.

On the basis of principle, Marshall refused to accept honors from his home state of Maryland or the city of Baltimore. Yet the name of Baltimore’s airport will be changed to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Only one member of the state’s Board of Public Works objected. But I think it is important to note WHY he objected – and that his objection was rooted in respect for Marshall’s principles.

All that was left yesterday was approval from the state's Board of Public Works. But state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (D), as usual, had something to say about it.

"This is wrong, and it shouldn't be done," Schaefer told the original sponsor of the proposal, Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr. (D-Baltimore), during a lengthy and at times tense public exchange.

Although the name change won broad support this year in the General Assembly, the comptroller suggested that those who objected were forced to remain silent rather than face accusations of racial insensitivity.

"Nobody who is politically wise votes against this, and you know why, and so do I," Schaefer (D) told Burns at a meeting of the three-member panel, which eventually passed the measure, with Schaefer abstaining.

Schaefer said Marshall had in the past resisted being honored in Maryland, a state that denied him admission to law school because of his race. Schaefer, 83, a former governor whose position is up for reelection next year, said he was annoyed by Marshall's reluctance to attend the 1980 dedication of a statue in his likeness erected in downtown Baltimore, the city where the justice was born in 1908.

"He just didn't like Baltimore, and he so expressed it," said Schaefer, who was mayor at the time.

Justice Marshall is a man whose legacy deserves respect. I may have fundamental problems with his jurisprudence, but I would never allow that to undermine my respect for his civil rights work and the legacy of equality that goes with that work. But I find it fundamentally wrong to bestow honors upon him in death that he would have rejected in life.

Their response of the so-called civil rights leaders is exactly what one would have expected.

Civil rights leaders hailed the result, calling it fitting recognition for Marshall's contributions as a lawyer, activist and judge. When the governor signed the bill in May, Burns called it "the second-happiest day of my life," behind his wedding day. "Our purpose is to honor a great man," he told the crowd that day. "Generations yet unborn will ask the meaning of this -- and will be told that this governor, this lieutenant governor, this legislature chose to honor one of its own, a son of Maryland who changed the nation for all of America."

Yesterday, Burns tried mightily to contain his outrage at Schaefer's remarks. Burns attempted to tell Schaefer that many other cities, including Jackson, Miss., New Orleans and Atlanta, had named airports for prominent black innovators.
"You're doing it because others have done it?" Schaefer snapped.

"We did it because it's the right thing to do," Burns replied curtly.

So the forces of political correctness and the politicians who pander to them rammed through the proposal to rename the airport, despite the fact that rejecting it would have really been the right thing to do.

After all, how does one honor a hero by going against the principles he practiced during his life?