Departments

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Judicial Review

  • 10/9/2022

    Lincoln Would have Had an Answer for the "Originalists"

    by Richard Striner

    The 16th President looked to the constitutional crises of his time and asked whether the document was created to serve the people or the other way around. Today he might ask the same of the Supreme Court. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    8/2/2022

    SCOTUS Hasn't Always Been the Final Arbiter; Liberals Should Stop Thinking it Is

    by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath

    "Liberals drew the wrong lessons from the mid-20th century federal judiciary’s fleeting embrace of social reform, and forgot that over the long arc of U.S. history, the minority rights the court has most consistently safeguarded have been those of the wealthy and powerful, the corporate, landed and enslaver elites."

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    6/8/2022

    The Supreme Court Isn't Supposed to be this Powerful

    by Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan

    "Judicial supremacy is an institutional arrangement brought to cultural ascendancy by white people who wanted to undo Reconstruction and the rise of organized labor that had followed."

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    7/16/2021

    Why Let the Supreme Court Dominate Democracy?

    by Nikolas Bowie

    Liberals have been conditioned to look to the Supreme Court of Brown v. Board of Education as a protector of democracy. What if the court's dominant historical legacy is the body of decisions that enabled the rise of Jim Crow in the first place? 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    9/22/2020

    Down With Judicial Supremacy!

    by Jamelle Bouie

    The power of the courts to define the meaning of the Constitution has been challenged by legislative, executive and popular action at different times in American history. If that prospect seems scary, remember that it's the process that overthrew the Dred Scott decision as the law of the land, argues NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie.