I've heard this "activist" title being tossed around. I don't believe it making new law from the bench so I'm more comforable with the court doing what it is required to do and letting the system sort it out - like it apparently did.

No it didn't. Read the opinions. The majority ignored Congress' clearly expressed intent, in the 1991 Civil Rights Act, to follow Duke Power. The Court imposed its own view on how disparate impact cases should be treated. They truly did make new law from the bench, in clear defiance of the law enacted by our elected representatives and signed into law by President GHW Bush.