tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/earl-warren-85357/articlesEarl Warren – The Conversation2022-10-31T12:34:34Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923842022-10-31T12:34:34Z2022-10-31T12:34:34ZWhen the Supreme Court loses Americans’ loyalty, chaos – even violence – can follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492336/original/file-20221028-41626-toraho.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C8%2C2691%2C2295&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Policemen keep a mob back as James Meredith, a Black student trying to enroll at the University of Mississippi, is driven away after being refused admittance to the all-white university in Oxford on Sept. 25, 1962. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/OLEMISSINTEGRATIONMEREDITH/c8f95636a0e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=James%20Meredith&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=447&currentItemNo=30">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court’s <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/402044/supreme-court-trust-job-approval-historical-lows.aspx">historically low public standing</a> has prompted a national conversation about the court’s legitimacy. It’s even drawn rare <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/opinion/roberts-alito-kagan-barrett-thomas.html">public comment from three sitting Supreme Court justices</a>.
What’s referred to by experts as the problem of “judicial legitimacy” may seem abstract, but the court’s faltering public support is about more than popularity. </p>
<p>Eroding legitimacy means that government officials and ordinary people become increasingly unlikely to accept public policies with which they disagree. And Americans need only look to the relatively recent past to understand the stakes of the court’s growing legitimacy problem.</p>
<h2>Cost ‘paid in blood’</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/349us294">Brown v. Board of Education</a> shined a light on many white Americans’ tenuous loyalty to the authority of the federal judiciary. </p>
<p>In Brown, the court unanimously held that racial segregation in public education violates the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv/clauses/702">equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment</a>. The justices were abundantly aware that their decision would evoke strong emotions. So Chief Justice Earl Warren worked tirelessly to ensure that the court <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2128278">issued a unanimous, short and readable opinion</a> designed to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article/26/2/185/2886472">calm the anticipated popular opposition</a>. </p>
<p>Warren’s efforts were in vain. Rather than recognizing the court’s authoritative interpretation of the Constitution, many white Americans participated in an extended, violent campaign of resistance to the desegregation ruling.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A highway with old cars on it and a billboard that says 'IMPEACH EARL WARREN' on the side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492341/original/file-20221028-40936-yzo27.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Resistance in the South to the Supreme Court’s school desegregation order was strong and often violent. This billboard urged impeachment of the court’s then-chief justice, Earl Warren.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USIMPEACHWARRENBILLBOARD/9cd64cd66ae4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=Brown%20Board%20of%20education&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=73&currentItemNo=6">AP photo</a></span>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.colorlines.com/articles/tbt-us-court-ruling-enforces-james-merediths-desegregation-ole-miss">integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962</a> provides a pointed example of this resistance. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court had backed a lower federal court that ordered the university to admit <a href="https://50years.olemiss.edu/james-meredith/">James Meredith</a>, a Black Air Force veteran. But Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett led a wide-ranging effort to stop Meredith from enrolling at Ole Miss, including deploying state and local police to prevent Meredith from entering campus.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ohpcrm.org/this-day-in-civil-rights-history/september">On Sunday, Sept. 30, 1962</a>, Meredith nevertheless arrived on the university’s campus, guarded by dozens of federal marshals, to register and begin classes the next day. A crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 people gathered on campus and broke into a riot. Meredith and the marshals were attacked with Molotov cocktails and gunfire. The marshals fired tear gas in return. </p>
<p>In response, <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/civil-rights-movement">President John F. Kennedy invoked the Insurrection Act</a> of 1807 and ordered the U.S. Army onto campus to restore order and protect Meredith. Overnight, thousands of troops arrived, battling rioters. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Armed troops along a sidewalk in the night, with fire in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492338/original/file-20221028-60919-4dcef0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President John F. Kennedy called in federal troops to quell the violence against James Meredith’s enrollment in the University of Mississippi in 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/troops-patroling-streets-during-riots-vs-enrollment-of-news-photo/50678789?phrase=james%20meredith%20army&adppopup=true">Lynn Pelham/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The violence finally ended after 15 hours, leaving two civilians dead – both killed by rioters – and dozens of wounded marshals and soldiers in addition to hundreds of injuries among the insurgent mob. </p>
<p>The next day, <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2022/09/27/60-years-since-james-meredith-enrolled-at-ole-miss/65450135007/">Oct. 1, Meredith enrolled in the university</a> and attended his first class, but thousands of troops remained in Mississippi for months afterward to preserve order.</p>
<p>What some call “the <a href="http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/book-reviews/american-insurrection-battle-oxford-mississippi-1962">Battle of Oxford</a>” was fueled by white racism and segregation, but it played out against the backdrop of weak judicial legitimacy. Federal courts did not command enough respect among state officials or ordinary white Mississippians to protect the constitutional rights of Black Mississippians. Neither Gov. Barnett nor the thousands of Oxford rioters were willing to follow the court order for Meredith to enroll at the university. </p>
<p>In the end, the Constitution and the federal courts prevailed only because Kennedy backed them with the Army. But the cost of weak judicial legitimacy was paid in blood.</p>
<h2>Legitimacy leads to acceptance</h2>
<p>In contrast, when people believe in the legitimacy of their governing institutions, they are more likely to accept, respect and abide by the rules the government – including the courts – ask them to live under, even when the stakes are high and the consequences are far-reaching.</p>
<p>For example, two decades ago, the Supreme Court resolved a disputed presidential election in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949">Bush v. Gore</a>, centered on the counting of ballots in Florida. This time, the court was deeply divided along ideological lines, and its long, complicated and fragmented opinion <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.polisci.6.121901.085832">was based on questionable legal reasoning</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Police in helmets with riot gear with smoke in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492339/original/file-20221028-61541-9cxnry.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Clashes between riot police and Donald Trump supporters near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clashes-between-riot-police-and-trump-supporters-near-the-u-news-photo/1230477139?phrase=january%206%202021%20capitol&adppopup=true">Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>But in 2000, the court enjoyed more robust <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/402044/supreme-court-trust-job-approval-historical-lows.aspx">legitimacy</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4092195">among the public</a> than it does today. As a consequence, Florida officials ceased recounting disputed ballots. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/goretext121300.htm">Vice President Al Gore conceded</a> the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122220&page=1">specifically accepting the Supreme Court’s pivotal ruling</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/01/07/gore-presides-as-congress-tallies-votes-electing-bush/0461e40f-3317-4a7e-a1ad-2232aae304db/">No Democratic senator</a> challenged the validity of Florida’s disputed Electoral College votes for Bush. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-07-mn-9426-story.html">Congress certified the Electoral College’s vote</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/21/us/inauguration-president-bush-taking-office-calls-for-civility-compassion-nation.html">Bush was inaugurated</a>. </p>
<p>Democrats were surely disappointed, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/21/us/inauguration-demonstrations-protesters-thousands-sound-off-capital.html">some protested</a>. But the court was viewed as sufficiently legitimate to produce enough acceptance by enough people to ensure a peaceful transition of power. There was no violent riot; there was no open resistance. </p>
<p>Indeed, on the very night that Gore conceded, the chants of his supporters gathered outside tacitly accepted the outcome: “<a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-00election35-story.html">Gore in four!</a>” – as if to say, “We’ll get you next time, because we believe there will be a next time.”</p>
<h2>Risks ahead</h2>
<p>But what happens when institutions fail to retain citizens’ loyalty?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/politics/jan-6-timeline.html">The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection</a> showcased the consequences of broken legitimacy. The rioters who stormed the Capitol had lost faith in systems that undergird American democracy: counting presidential votes in the states, tallying Electoral College ballots and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/">settling disputes over election law in the courts</a>. </p>
<p>The rioters may well have believed their country was being stolen, even if such beliefs were baseless. So, they rebelled in the face of a result they didn’t like. </p>
<p>This threat is far from gone. In addition to numerous important questions about individual rights and the scope of government power, the Supreme Court may soon be asked to resolve disputes over the administration of elections and the power to certify election winners – particularly <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/moore-v-harper-2/">the authority to designate a slate of presidential electors</a>. </p>
<p>Nothing is certain in politics, but the specter of constitutional crisis looms over the United States. It’s dangerously unclear whether the Supreme Court retains enough legitimacy to authoritatively resolve such disputes. If it doesn’t, the court’s abstract legitimacy problem could once again end with blood in the streets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Daniel Ura has previously received research funding from the National Science Foundation and funding for academic programs from the Charles Koch Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew E. K. Hall has previously received research funding from the National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>What’s at stake when Americans lose faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court?Joseph Daniel Ura, Professor of Political Science, Texas A&M UniversityMatthew Hall, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1859412022-06-30T12:22:14Z2022-06-30T12:22:14ZThe Supreme Court has overturned precedent dozens of times, including striking down legal segregation and reversing Roe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471441/original/file-20220628-25-syjzvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C8%2C5946%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstrator outside the Supreme Court building expresses fear that other precedents will fall, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtAbortion/8841875201f44dab855d8af3c9b24b5d/photo">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a central principle of law: Courts, including the Supreme Court, are supposed to follow earlier decisions – precedent – to resolve current disputes. But on rare occasions, Supreme Court justices conclude that one of the court’s past constitutional precedents has to go, so they overrule it. This is exactly what happened in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-1392">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a>, when the court overturned <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113">Roe v. Wade</a>, the 1973 ruling recognizing a constitutional right to abortion. </p>
<p>For years the court had been building up a <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/constitutional-precedent-in-us-supreme-court-reasoning-9781839103124.html">theory of precedent reversal</a> that would justify overturning Roe, among other precedents it did not like, and the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/read-justice-alito-initial-abortion-opinion-overturn-roe-v-wade-pdf-00029504">draft opinion</a> leaked in early 2022 foreshadowed this decision.</p>
<p>The justices who voted to overrule the Roe precedent provided the reasoning behind their decision to reverse a longstanding ruling and declare abortion rights are not protected by the U.S. Constitution. Their explanations also open up the possibility of more reversals of precedent in the future.</p>
<h2>Why precedent?</h2>
<p>Over the centuries, courts have stated many reasons they should adhere to precedent. First is the idea of equity or justice, under which “<a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/benjohnson/files/like_cases.pdf">like cases should be decided alike</a>.” If a court in the past reviewed a particular set of facts and decided a case in a specific way, fairness dictates it should decide another similar case the same way. Adhering to precedent <a href="http://www.nonpublication.com/schauer.htm">promotes uniformity and consistency</a> in the law.</p>
<p>In addition, precedent promotes judicial efficiency: Courts do not have to decide from scratch every time. They can look at similar cases from the past and base their reasoning on those decisions.</p>
<p>Finally, following precedent promotes predictability in the law and <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol47/iss2/2/">protects people who have come to rely on past decisions as a guide for their behavior</a>. </p>
<h2>Reversing precedent is unusual</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court rarely overturns its past decisions or precedents. </p>
<p>In my book, “<a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/constitutional-precedent-in-us-supreme-court-reasoning-9781839103124.html">Constitutional Precedent in Supreme Court Reasoning</a>,” I point out that from 1789 to 2020, there were 25,544 Supreme Court opinions and judgments after oral arguments. The court has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times – barely 0.5%.</p>
<p>The court’s historic periods are often characterized by who led it as chief justice. From 1953 until 2020, under the successive leadership of Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and now John Roberts, the court overturned constitutional precedent 32, 32, 30 and 15 times, respectively. That is well under 1% of decisions handled during each period in the court’s history.</p>
<h2>When is precedent overturned?</h2>
<p>For most of its history, the court changed its mind only when it thought past precedent was unworkable or no longer viable, perhaps eroded by its subsequent opinions or by changing social conditions. In some cases, reversal happened when the court simply thought it got it wrong in the past.</p>
<p>Not all precedents are equal, and several current Supreme Court justices have in the past been open to overturning even long-standing rulings that interpret the Constitution.</p>
<p>Beginning with the Rehnquist court, justices became more willing to reject precedents they thought were badly reasoned, simply wrong or inconsistent with their own sense of the constitutional framers’ intentions. Justice <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-1323">Clarence Thomas</a> has taken this position on abortion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, during her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea/supreme-court-nominee-does-not-consider-roe-v-wade-a-super-precedent/">Senate confirmation hearing</a>, argued that Roe is not a so-called superprecedent, a decision so important or foundational that it cannot be overturned. </p>
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<span class="caption">The newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, signaled even before her confirmation that she was open to overturning Roe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/McConnellCenter/cad821c05f154524a8e698ce26178bfa/photo">AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley</a></span>
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<p>Roberts has been willing to overturn settled law when he thinks the original opinion was not well argued. He did so in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZC.html">Citizens United</a>, a 2010 decision overturning two major campaign finance decisions, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/652">Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce</a> from 1989 and part of the 2003 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1674.ZS.html">McConnell v. FEC</a> decision.</p>
<p>In 2020, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-5924">Ramos v. Louisiana</a> went out of their way to explain and justify their views on when constitutional precedent may be overturned. They echoed Justice Samuel Alito’s discussion in 2018 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/16-1466">Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council Number 31</a>. All three justices said constitutional precedent is merely a matter of court policy or discretion, more easily overturned than a precedent about a law. Sometimes, they said, constitutional precedents can be overruled if later judges view them as wrongly decided or reasoned.</p>
<p>All of these comments foreshadowed the Dobbs opinion.</p>
<h2>Reversing Roe v. Wade</h2>
<p>Roe v. Wade was an important precedent. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that women have a right to terminate their pregnancies. That right was reaffirmed in 1991 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a>, with Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter noting that an entire generation of women came of age relying upon their right to control their bodies and terminate pregnancies in most circumstances. The justices said it would be wrong to upset that expectation, declaring “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">An entire generation has come of age</a> free to assume Roe’s concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions.”</p>
<p>In the Dobbs decision, Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, said “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-1392#writing-19-1392_OPINION_4">Roe and Casey must be overruled</a>.” His justification was that abortion rights are not mentioned in the Constitution, and protection of abortion rights is not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” He also said Roe was not essential to the United States’ “scheme of ordered liberty” – or <a href="https://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/ordered-liberty.html">sense of personal freedom</a>.</p>
<p>Alito also argued that Roe was “was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.” </p>
<p>For Alito and the justices who joined his opinion – Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett – the weakness and wrongness of the Roe decision simply outweighed the importance of the fact that women had relied on it for decades when making important personal decisions.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that argued for reversing Roe for additional reasons. He wrote that the Constitution is silent on abortion – and therefore <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-1392#writing-19-1392_CONCUR_6">neutral on its constitutionality or unconstitutionality</a> – so the court should be silent also. He declared that Roe was “egregiously wrong” and said it “has caused significant negative jurisprudential or real-world consequences.”</p>
<p>Finally, and perhaps most dramatically, Thomas’ concurrence declared that not only was Roe wrong, but the entire idea of the court recognizing the existence of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-1392#writing-19-1392_CONCUR_5">constitutional rights not explicitly found in the text</a> of the Constitution was flawed, an inappropriate expansion of rights that is known as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/substantive_due_process">substantive due process</a>. </p>
<p>Thomas called for the court to reconsider the 1964 decision on the right of any couple to <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/496">use birth control</a>, the 2002 decision on the right of same-sex couples to <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-102">engage in private consensual sexual acts</a> and the 2014 decision on the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556">right of same-sex couples to marry</a>. All of these are presumably settled precedents. However, given Dobbs and the reasoning the various justices in the majority have offered, they too, along with others, could be candidates for reversal. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-overturned-precedent-dozens-of-times-in-the-past-60-years-including-when-it-struck-down-legal-segregation-168052">article originally published</a> Sept. 20, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Schultz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The justices who decided to overturn the abortion rights precedent of Roe v. Wade explained their reasoning, and signaled other precedents could be reversed as well.David Schultz, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Professor of Political Science, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1680522021-09-20T12:30:28Z2021-09-20T12:30:28ZThe Supreme Court has overturned precedent dozens of times in the past 60 years, including when it struck down legal segregation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421689/original/file-20210916-23-1ds4ezt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7165%2C4719&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How much importance does the Supreme Court place on prior decisions?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-seen-on-september-02-2021-in-news-photo/1337858328">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a central principle of law: Courts are supposed to follow earlier decisions – precedent – to resolve current disputes. But it’s inevitable that sometimes, the precedent has to go, and a court has to overrule another court, or even its own decision from an earlier case.</p>
<p>In its upcoming term, the U.S. Supreme Court faces the question of whether to overrule itself on abortion rights. Recent laws in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/19/texas-abortion-law-abbott/">Texas</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade/2021/05/17/cdaf1dd6-b708-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html">Mississippi</a> restrict the right of women to terminate pregnancies in ways that appear to challenge the long-standing precedent of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113">Roe v. Wade</a>, which allowed women to have abortions in most circumstances.</p>
<p>Over the centuries, courts have stated many reasons they should adhere to precedent. First is the idea of equity or justice, under which “<a href="https://cgc.law.stanford.edu/commentaries/15-john-walker/#:%7E:text=I.-,How%20Does%20a%20Case%20Become%20a%20Binding%20Precedent%3F,cases%20should%20be%20decided%20alike.&text=First%2C%20as%20compared%20with%20the,as%20applied%20to%20similar%20facts.">like cases should be decided alike</a>,” as one senior federal judge put it. If a court in the past reviewed a particular set of facts and decided a case in a specific way, fairness dictates it should decide another similar case the same way. Precedent <a href="http://www.nonpublication.com/schauer.htm">promotes uniformity and consistency</a> in the law.</p>
<p>In addition, precedent promotes judicial efficiency: Courts do not have to decide from scratch every time. Finally, following precedent promotes predictability in the law and <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol47/iss2/2/">protects people who have come to rely on past decisions as a guide for their behavior</a>. </p>
<p>But not all precedents are equal, and several current Supreme Court justices have signaled that they might be open to overturning even long-standing rulings that interpret the Constitution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people holding signs in front of the Supreme Court building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421690/original/file-20210916-23-1jg8wh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abortion opponents are hoping the Supreme Court will overturn its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which allows women to have abortions in many cases.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AbortionAidNetworks/4f5f3322844e477eb9e0ce0d618a3a01/photo">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reversing precedent is unusual</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court rarely overturns its past decisions or precedents. </p>
<p>In my forthcoming book, “Constitutional Precedent in Supreme Court Reasoning,” I point out that from 1789 to 2020 there were 25,544 Supreme Court opinions and judgments after oral arguments. The court has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times – barely one-half of one percent.</p>
<p>The court’s historic periods are often characterized by who led it as chief justice. It was not until the 1930s under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that it started to overturn precedents with any frequency. These were cases such as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/657/USSC_PRO_312_100_82">United States v. Darby</a>, in which the court began to affirm President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal economic policies after previously rejecting them as unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Before then, of course, many cases asked the court to interpret clauses of the Constitution for the first time, so there were often no precedents to confront or overturn.</p>
<p>Under Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and now John Roberts, the court overturned constitutional precedent 32, 32, 30 and 15 times, respectively. That is well under 1% of decisions handled during each period in the court’s history.</p>
<h2>When is precedent overturned?</h2>
<p>For most of its history the court changed its mind only when it thought past precedent was unworkable or no longer viable, perhaps eroded by its subsequent opinions or by changing social conditions. </p>
<p>This happened in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/304/64">Erie Railroad v. Tompkins</a>, a 1938 Supreme Court case overturning a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/41/1">96-year-old precedent</a> in which the court had constructed rules about how federal courts should handle cases involving parties from different states. The court in Erie said that the original decision proved to be unworkable and had been undermined by the court’s own later decisions.</p>
<p>The court has also said that its precedents based on <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-5721.ZO.html">constitutional grounds</a> deserve less respect than those in which the court interprets statutes or laws. The reason is that if Congress thinks the court has erred in a matter of interpreting a statute or law, it is relatively easy for them to overturn it by passing a new law. But it’s quite hard to pass a constitutional amendment, so the only real way to update the judicial understanding of the Constitution is to overrule a precedent.</p>
<p>Of course the most famous reversal of precedent is the 1954 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brown_v_board_of_education_(1954)">Brown v. Board of Education</a> under the Warren Court, in which it reversed <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537">Plessy v. Ferguson</a> and struck down segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.</p>
<p>Roe v. Wade is an important precedent. In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that women have a right to terminate their pregnancies. That right was reaffirmed in 1991 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a>, with Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter noting that an entire generation of women came of age relying upon their right to control their bodies and terminate pregnancies in most circumstances. The justices said it would be wrong to upset that expectation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Turn-Conservative-Christian-Politics/dp/1108405606/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=abortion+politics&qid=1631829608&s=books&sr=1-4">Roe has also spurred opposition</a>, with many wanting to overturn it. For years, presidents including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump sought to appoint justices to the Supreme Court with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-hearings-updates-and-analysis-on-the-supreme-court-nominee/trump-promised-judges-who-would-overturn-roe-v-wade/">the goal of overturning Roe</a> and, with it, abortion rights. Now with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558">6-3 conservative majority</a>, the court may be poised to do that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman speaks into a microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421691/original/file-20210916-21-1263pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, has signaled she might be open to overturning Roe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/McConnellCenter/cad821c05f154524a8e698ce26178bfa/photo">AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Justices get more comfortable reversing precedent</h2>
<p>Beginning with the Rehnquist court, justices have become more willing to reject precedents they think were badly reasoned, simply wrong, or inconsistent with their own senses of the constitutional framers’ intentions. Justice <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-1323">Clarence Thomas</a> has taken this position on abortion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett during her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea/supreme-court-nominee-does-not-consider-roe-v-wade-a-super-precedent/">Senate confirmation hearing</a> argued that Roe is not a so-called superprecedent, a decision so important or foundational that it cannot be overturned. </p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<p>Chief Justice Roberts has been willing to overturn settled law when he thinks the original opinion was not well argued. He did so in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZC.html">Citizens United</a>, a 2010 decision overturning two major campaign finance decisions, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/652">Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce</a> and part of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1674.ZS.html">McConnell v. FEC</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-5924">Ramos v. Louisiana</a> went out of their way to explain and justify their views on when constitutional precedent may be overturned. They echoed Justice Samuel Alito’s discussion in 2018 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/16-1466">Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council Number 31</a>. All three justices said constitutional precedent is merely a matter of court policy or discretion, more easily overturned than a precedent about a law. Sometimes, they said, constitutional precedents can be overruled if later judges view them as wrongly decided or reasoned.</p>
<p>Abortion foes have been preparing practically since Roe was decided to overturn it. They have set both the political conditions and legal justification to overturn Roe, and perhaps this year it will be the time when it finally happens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Schultz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is value in observing legal precedent, but sometimes circumstances, logic or judges’ views determine it’s time to overturn it.David Schultz, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Professor of Political Science, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1547822021-02-10T13:15:54Z2021-02-10T13:15:54ZLiberals in Congress and the White House have faced a conservative Supreme Court before<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383337/original/file-20210209-19-1pl7tt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C8%2C2991%2C2115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the U.S. Supreme Court visit President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House in 1934.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtCallsOnFDR1934/87c2a2da5c274849955dcee8814253ae/photo">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Democrats are looking to make major changes in government initiatives – including on <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/27/fact-sheet-president-biden-takes-executive-actions-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad-create-jobs-and-restore-scientific-integrity-across-federal-government/">climate change</a>, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/08/biden-immigration-refugee-policy-family-separation-latin-america/">immigration</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/miguel-cardona-confirmation-hearing/2021/02/03/21d65be8-665c-11eb-8468-21bc48f07fe5_story.html">education</a>. </p>
<p>But many of those ideas <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-disputes-between-congress-and-the-white-house-so-often-end-up-in-court-150333">may end up in court</a> – where they will face a Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558">dominated by conservatives</a>.</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett make the Supreme Court <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/26/politics/supreme-court-conservative/index.html">more conservative</a> than it has been at any time since the 1930s, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. Many court watchers expect that the current court’s decisions will lean much further to the right than Congress, the president and public opinion do. </p>
<p>Fearing a clash between the branches, some have even suggested that President Joe Biden consider <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/biden-amy-coney-barrett-scotus-confirmation-election-trump-pack-the-courts-b1052731.html">adding justices to the court</a> – as Roosevelt considered but ultimately didn’t pursue – to prevent key legislation from being struck down.</p>
<p>As scholars of U.S. legal history know, the court is often less insulated from politics than many people assume. Roosevelt’s threat to pack the courts, and what happened next, illustrate the pressures the Supreme Court faces to limit how far it strays from the other branches and from public opinion. </p>
<h2>The Lochner era</h2>
<p>Most Americans today are not accustomed to a right-leaning Supreme Court. Instead, they have viewed the judicial branch as a reliable – or lamentable – champion of liberal values. That dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, when the court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, made a series of <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/the-warren-court-4706521">landmark liberal rulings</a> generally expanding civil rights on issues from school desegregation to criminal defendants’ rights.</p>
<p>But the liberalism of the Warren court was itself a major shift. </p>
<p>From the late 19th century through to the 1930s, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, were generally considered to be the most conservative branch of the federal government, especially on economic issues. The courts championed limited government and broad freedom for corporations.</p>
<p>That period of pro-business jurisprudence came to be known among legal scholars as the “Lochner era,” named for the 1905 case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/198us45">Lochner v. New York</a>. </p>
<p>In that case, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that, to protect employees, had regulated working conditions in bakeries. The majority of the justices held that the law violated bakeshop owners’ liberty to contract with their employees as they wished.</p>
<p>The court also continued to limit <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/commerce_clause">Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce</a> to a narrow range of economic activity that excluded most manufacturing and services.</p>
<h2>The New Deal and the court</h2>
<p>In 1933, Roosevelt came to power with a strong mandate to tackle the Great Depression. He quickly established several new government agencies, reformed financial regulations and sought to regulate business in unprecedented ways. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Industrial-Recovery-Act">National Industrial Recovery Act</a>, for instance, called for industrywide codes of fair competition that set minimum wages, prices, maximum working hours, production quotas and regulations for the process of selling goods. Although Congress saw the need for such a transformative piece of legislation, it was <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/295us495">challenged in the courts</a> by a poultry company that had been charged with violating a new code governing the poultry industry. Schechter Poultry’s violations included selling chickens on an individual basis and selling them to nonlicensed purchasers. The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Schechter and struck down key parts of the NIRA, drawing in part on its restrictive understanding of the commerce clause. </p>
<p>In this and other cases during Roosevelt’s first term, the Supreme Court demonstrated a growing divergence from the other branches and public opinion. The public had expressed its hunger for strong and far-reaching economic legislation by electing New Deal Democrats to Congress and the presidency. But unelected lifetime appointees on the court held onto a more conservative understanding of the scope of governmental power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation in 1936" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383349/original/file-20210209-17-385f14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin D. Roosevelt, seen here defending the New Deal before Congress in 1936, won a landslide reelection that year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FDRDefendsNewDeal1936/661166dfb7564ee8ad46580011304988/photo">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A crucial shift</h2>
<p>When Roosevelt was reelected in a landslide in 1936, he proposed a bill to <a href="https://www.history.com/news/franklin-roosevelt-tried-packing-supreme-court">reform the federal judiciary</a> in an attempt to stop the Supreme Court’s obstruction of his policy initiatives.</p>
<p>This bill included what became known as his “<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-announces-court-packing-plan">court-packing plan</a>,” which would have potentially allowed Roosevelt to appoint six more justices, tilting the majority in his favor. </p>
<p>The Constitution <a href="https://theconversation.com/packing-the-court-amid-national-crises-lincoln-and-his-republicans-remade-the-supreme-court-to-fit-their-agenda-147139">doesn’t prohibit expanding the court</a>, but even Roosevelt’s supporters were wary, so the eventual bill was passed without that provision. </p>
<p>As the bill was being debated in Congress, court-packing became less urgent to Roosevelt and his supporters because a change occurred within the Supreme Court itself. Nobody died, but someone switched sides. Associate Justice Owen Roberts had previously voted with the right-wing opponents to the New Deal, but in 1937 he <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/300us379">joined the more liberal justices</a> to uphold a minimum-wage law in the state of Washington.</p>
<p>From that point on, the court expanded its interpretation of the commerce clause to give Congress much broader powers to regulate the economy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-democrats-achieve-by-threatening-to-pack-the-supreme-court">Some commentators</a> claim that Justice Owen Roberts shifted his opinion in direct response to Roosevelt’s threat to pack the Supreme Court, seeking to avoid executive and congressional interference in the judicial branch and therefore preserve its apparent independence. </p>
<p>But Owen Roberts actually <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/franklin-roosevelt-and-the-great-constitutional-war-the-court-packing-crisis-of-1937/oclc/49355855">had decided his position</a> in that case before Roosevelt publicly proposed the judicial reform bill. </p>
<p>Perhaps Owen Roberts already suspected that a court-packing plan, or something like it, was on the horizon when he decided to shift his position. But he might have been sufficiently concerned about the court’s departure from public opinion and the other branches even without such a threat. </p>
<p>When the court diverges drastically from the political mainstream, <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/06/john-roberts-broke-with-conservatives-to-preserve-the-supreme-courts-legitimacy.html">the public views it as less legitimate</a>. That is an outcome Supreme Court justices are usually eager to avoid. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chief Justice John Roberts" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383343/original/file-20210209-13-laf5d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief Justice John Roberts has spoken out against politicization of the federal judiciary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumpImpeachmentSenateTrial/72422d82817744ddbc02b67295f136a7/photo">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons for today</h2>
<p>There are perhaps more differences than similarities between Roosevelt’s confrontation with the court and the relationship between the Biden administration and the court today. For one thing, this court has not had a decadeslong rightward slant. Biden’s record is also as a centrist, and with a narrow majority in the Senate and a divided American public, he may not seek as transformative an agenda as Roosevelt did.</p>
<p>But the lesson from the 1930s remains: It is difficult for the Supreme Court to sustain a drastic divergence from other branches or public opinion without its legitimacy coming into question. To maintain the reputation of the institution, Supreme Court justices often limit their own divergence from the political mainstream, whether or not the other branches explicitly threaten to interfere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Cane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US Supreme Court is often less insulated from partisan politics than many Americans assume.Lucy Cane, Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1409102020-06-23T19:56:23Z2020-06-23T19:56:23ZWhen Supreme Court justices defy expectations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343288/original/file-20200622-55021-1biin20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C2959%2C1886&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, surprised many court watchers by authoring the decision to expand the Civil Rights Act.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trump-applauds-as-supreme-court-associate-news-photo/666861628?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in the important and much-anticipated case, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/17-1618">Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia</a>, that the LGBTQ community is protected from employment discrimination. </p>
<p>The 6-3 ruling took many by surprise, in part because two conservative justices were in the majority, and one of them, Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote the majority opinion. </p>
<p>In this transformative moment in U.S. history, when the public supports the recognition of fundamental human rights, including the right to marry the person of one’s choice, the law appears to be catching up with society. And the U.S. Supreme Court has decided cases in ways that <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/">reflect social realities</a>.</p>
<p>The principles of equality and nondiscrimination are at the heart of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/political-equality-and-american-democracy/10581912">American democratic tradition</a>. As <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1003632">a public law scholar</a>, I believe the bold decision in Bostock is consistent with a historic pattern of some justices defying expectations when faced with a major social transformation. </p>
<p>Instead of ruling to maintain the discriminatory status quo, they have demonstrated their commitment to these basic values of democracy by addressing historic injustices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343291/original/file-20200622-55013-1gg7tuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Proponents of same-sex marriage across the country celebrated its legalization in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/thousands-of-same-sex-marriage-supporters-in-west-hollywood-news-photo/563914089?adppopup=true">Joe Kohen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disappointed presidents</h2>
<p>One classic example of a justice defying expectations to promote civil rights is <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/earl_warren">Chief Justice Earl Warren</a>, who was appointed by President Dwight Eisenhower and served on the court between 1953 and 1969.</p>
<p>Warren arrived at the court as a Republican with conservative credentials. He had <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/762484?seq=1">been a proponent of</a> President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Calif-officials-including-Earl-Warren-once-13437345.php">place Japanese Americans in concentration camps</a>.</p>
<p>But as a Supreme Court justice, Warren did not meet the expectation that he would bring a conservative viewpoint to decisions. Instead, he championed civil rights as chief justice.</p>
<p>In 1954, he wrote the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483">landmark opinion in Brown v. Board of Education</a>, a unanimous decision which led to desegregration of public schools by overturning an 1896 precedent and rejecting the idea that “separate but equal” was constitutional. Social science showing the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/93824/simple-justice-by-richard-kluger/">psychic injury that racism caused</a> <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/psychologist-work-racial-identity-helped-overturn-school-segregation-180966934/">was crucial to this outcome</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343566/original/file-20200623-188931-1obta3a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The research conducted by Dr. Kenneth Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark, helped move the Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, to declare segregation in public schools unconstitutional.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-brown.html#obj62">Gordon Parks, photographer; Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some have speculated about Warren and his unexpected shift. His sense of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/East_to_America.html?id=Yu51AAAAMAAJ">guilt over his active involvement in the Japanese American incarceration</a> was apparently influential. The notion among the legal community about Warren’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education is that “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/13506">the Japanese Americans paid the ransom to free the Blacks</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343294/original/file-20200622-55009-48i1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Earl Warren came to the Supreme Court as a conservative and later turned into a champion for civil rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-american-jurist-chief-justice-of-the-supreme-news-photo/82316310?adppopup=true">Bachrach/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Although Eisenhower thought Warren would be <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780847696048/Justices-Presidents-and-Senators-A-History-of-U-S-Supreme-Court-Appointments-from-Washington-to-Clinton-revised-edition">conservative in his judicial philosophy, that was hardly the case</a>. In this and subsequent cases, <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/timeline_court_warren.html">what was called the “Warren court”</a> became synonymous with a series of rulings that expanded the scope of constitutional rights. </p>
<p>When asked what he considered his most serious mistakes, Eisenhower replied: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/commander-v-chief/554045/">“They are both sitting on the court</a>.” </p>
<p>He was referring to Justice Warren and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/25/us/william-brennan-91-dies-gave-court-liberal-vision.html">Justice William Brennan, a Republican</a> who had been on the New Jersey Supreme Court and whom Eisenhower appointed to the Supreme Court in 1956. Both judges were more liberal in their judicial philosophy than anticipated. </p>
<p>In these instances and others, <a href="http://epstein.wustl.edu/research/JusticePresident.pdf">presidents have been known to be disappointed</a> by the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcs/article/17/3/530/814389">decisions of those they appoint</a>. </p>
<h2>Unusual coalitions</h2>
<p>When justices are confronted with a new type of discrimination and are unconstrained by past precedent, they may have the ability to form coalitions on the court to advance civil rights. For instance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/09/business/archives-business-sexual-harassment-workplace-grueling-struggle-for-equality.html">the advocacy campaign against sexual harassment</a> outside of the court, aimed at addressing egregious misconduct in the workplace, appears to have exerted influence inside the court. </p>
<p>Even though women had experienced sexual harassment for centuries, no one had even coined a term for <a href="https://time.com/4286575/sexual-harassment-before-anita-hill/">the phenomenon until the 1970s</a>, when the federal government began to formulate new policies. </p>
<p>Policymakers recognized that sexual harassment was illegal when it took the form of coercing employees to perform sexual acts in exchange for rewards or to avoid losing their jobs or work-related benefits. </p>
<p>Subsequently, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency with responsibility for dealing with employment discrimination, was inundated with complaints. </p>
<p>When the Supreme Court first considered this issue in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1979">Meritor v. Vinson</a> in 1986, the notion was barely a decade old. Moreover, the central question was a novel one, whether an employee could sue for a different type of sexual harassment, a so-called “hostile work environment.”</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/84-1979">9-0 decision written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist</a> – who was appointed by President Richard Nixon and elevated to chief justice by President Ronald Reagan – the court <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393696738">unanimously</a> ruled that the protections in federal civil rights law did cover this type of sexual harassment. </p>
<p>The Meritor ruling, despite criticism of its treatment of relevant evidence and employer liability standards, was hailed as a victory for advocates of civil rights. </p>
<p>As with Bostock, the ruling in the <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-1323-6.html">Meritor decision was surprising</a>. Conservative justices had taken a liberal position and joined liberal justices in an effort to combat egregious misconduct in the workplace. They did this by expanding the scope of discrimination on the basis of sex with the new and more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/19/how-supreme-court-made-sexual-harassment-cases-more-difficult-win/">expansive interpretation of sexual harassment</a>.</p>
<h2>Marriage equality</h2>
<p>Another remarkable social change in American society is the recognition of same-sex marriage, known as marriage equality. Litigation began over this issue in the late 20th century with Baehr v. Lewin (1993), in which <a href="https://casetext.com/case/baehr-v-lewin-1">the Hawaii Supreme Court</a> held that the failure of a clerk to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couple <a href="https://www.peterlang.com/abstract/title/57672">was a form of sex discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>As the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal and other public interest organizations mounted campaigns advocating for same-sex marriage, public attitudes gradually shifted in favor of official <a href="https://www.lambdalegal.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_-TB-6aM6gIVIRh9Ch3OLwGyEAAYASAAEgIIg_D_BwE">recognition of customary marriages of same-sex couples</a>.</p>
<p>This social movement culminated in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556">Obergefell v. Hodges</a> in 2015. Acknowledging that the U.S. had undergone a significant social transformation in accepting diverse types of intimate relationships, the court resolved to make the law match the times.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343321/original/file-20200622-55017-lsemzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amy Snow and Christelle Snow (R), who married in April 2015 under California law, celebrate the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage in June 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/amy-snow-and-christelle-snow-who-married-in-april-celebrate-news-photo/478728160?adppopup=true">David McNew/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The 5-4 decision, which held that the right to marry is fundamental and guaranteed by the Constitution, was authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy said he voted in favor of this position even though <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-11-28/retired-justice-kennedy-says-his-gay-marriage-ruling-surprised-him-video">it did not correspond to his own Catholic religious tenets</a>. </p>
<p>Kennedy said he undertook writing the landmark opinion because of his religious beliefs: “It seemed to me I couldn’t hide,” he told an interviewer. “The nature of injustice is you can’t see it in your own time,” <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-11-28/retired-justice-kennedy-says-his-gay-marriage-ruling-surprised-him-video">Kennedy said</a>. “And as I thought about it more and more, it seemed to me just wrong under the Constitution to say that over 100,000 adopted children of gay parents could not have their parents married.”</p>
<h2>Social upheaval creates new context</h2>
<p>In the midst of immense social upheaval, courts and individual justices grapple with rules that must be reassessed in a new context – so it seems less surprising that justices consider carefully the meaning of equality and sex discrimination in light of the changing times. </p>
<p>This set of examples suggests that it may be unwise to presume that judges will vote in particular ways because of their backgrounds or judicial philosophy. Over the years, justices have felt the exigencies of the times that sometimes lead them to rule in ways that will protect the American constitutional order. Chief Justice John Roberts, expected to be more ideologically conservative in his rulings, has been praised for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/01/robertss-rules/305559/">his role in building consensus, his temperament and his fair-mindedness</a>.</p>
<p>While this certainly does not happen all the time, it may at least indicate that the U.S. political system can survive the ongoing crises of the 21st century associated with hyper-polarization. Ideological considerations, while often important in judicial decision-making, do not necessarily provide a guide to future decisions. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Dundes Renteln does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court as a conservative. But his ruling in a major civil rights case is part of a pattern of justices setting aside ideology to address historic injustices.Alison Dundes Renteln, Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, Public Policy and Law, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1361022020-04-14T12:22:52Z2020-04-14T12:22:52ZWhy the Supreme Court made Wisconsin vote during the coronavirus crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327487/original/file-20200413-77375-1owghk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=127%2C42%2C5520%2C3717&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Milwaukee voters wait in a social-distancing line, some wearing masks, before voting in the state's spring elections on April 7.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Wisconsin-Election/ec01e1ad3c9c4435bdeef689d09d0c65/3/0">AP Photo/Morry Gash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Wisconsin voters had to brave the coronavirus pandemic <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/long-lines-form-in-milwaukee-as-wisconsin-proceeds-with-elections-under-court-order/2020/04/07/93727b34-78c7-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html">to vote in their state’s April 7 election</a>, it was the latest phase of a nearly 60-year legal and political fight over who can vote in the U.S.</p>
<p><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/after-a-disturbing-election-day-now-what-in-wisconsin.html">Wearing masks and gloves</a>, Wisconsin residents who <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/09/wisconsin-supreme-court-partisan-battleground-176292">voted in person</a> were met by election officials in similar attire. That was new. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t new that voters found hundreds of polling places closed and therefore had to wait in line for hours.</p>
<p>A U.S. Supreme Court decision just the day before had ordered Wisconsin to <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19a1016_o759.pdf">hold its in-person election without delay</a>, not allowing extra time for voters to cast their ballots by mail. Critics called the decision one of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/wisconsin-primary-supreme-court.html">raw partisanship</a>,” “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/supreme-courts-hypocrisy-going-get-americans-killed/609598/">an ominous harbinger</a> for what the Court might allow in November in the general election” – and even a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/opinion/sunday/wisconsin-primary-2020-election.html">death threat</a>” aimed at voters.</p>
<p>As someone who <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol1971/iss2/2/">has long studied</a> the complex intersections of law and politics, I saw the ruling as the latest episode in the fight over the franchise and one of a series of decisions under Chief Justice John Roberts that have <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1328654">rejected efforts</a> to protect or extend voting rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327492/original/file-20200413-156005-cj7no6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Warren court from 1958 to 1962. Standing, from left: Justices Charles E. Whittaker, John M. Harlan, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart. Seated, from left, Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo L. Black, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Justices Felix Frankfurter and Tom C. Clark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Supreme_Court_1958-62.jpg">Supreme Court of the United States/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Warren court and the vote</h2>
<p>In 1886, the Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/#tab-opinion-1911262">recognized</a> that voting is “a fundamental political right, because [it is] preservative of all rights.” So long as people can vote, the justices reasoned, they could fix any problems democracy might encounter.</p>
<p>Starting in 1962, the court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, responded to suits brought by civil rights groups by issuing a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3108678">series of rulings</a> based on that 1886 principle. The decisions effectively declared that <a href="https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol80/iss4/6/">federal courts would ensure that everyone’s vote counted equally</a> and that barriers to voting would be removed wherever possible.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/369/186/#tab-opinion-1943624">Baker v. Carr</a>, decided in 1962, the Supreme Court held that judges could review the process of drawing boundaries for legislative districts, and that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the law required those districts to be roughly equal in population.</p>
<p>Two years later, the Warren court <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1963/23">extended this understanding</a> of the 14th Amendment and decided that state legislative districts must guarantee “one person, one vote.” For an 8-1 majority, Chief Justice Warren wrote that because the right to vote was the “bedrock of our political system … any alleged infringement of [it] … must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.”</p>
<p>In 1966, the court held 6-3 that states <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/383/663/#tab-opinion-1945992">could not require voters in state elections to pay a tax</a> before voting. That ruling solidified the court’s role in protecting voters’ free access to cast their ballots. Justice William Douglas wrote for the majority that the right to vote was “too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned.”</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/2204912/representation_rights_and_the_burger_years">Burger</a> and <a href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3360&context=flr">Rehnquist</a> courts pulled back in some areas of voting rights and were less aggressive in other voting rights cases than the Warren court, they did not aggressively dismantle its legacy – that is, until <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/98/#tab-opinion-1960860">Bush v. Gore</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327494/original/file-20200413-141875-7vz9qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of George W. Bush and Al Gore protest outside the Supreme Court building in December 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:56.ElectionProtest.USSC.WDC.11December2000_(21752049743).jpg">Elvert Barnes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bush v. Gore and voting rights</h2>
<p>The Supreme Court’s commitment to policing the electoral process in the name of equality and inclusion was shattered when, on Dec. 12, 2000, it <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/98/#tab-opinion-1960860">stopped a recount</a> in Florida’s closely contested presidential election, ensuring that George W. Bush would become president of the United States.</p>
<p>That 5-4 decision, nearly five years before Bush appointed Roberts to the court, launched an era of <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2772570">bitter partisan division</a> in voting-rights cases that the conservative-majority Roberts court has continued.</p>
<p>In 2008, for instance, the court, dividing 6-3, upheld an Indiana law requiring <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/#tab-opinion-1962669">people to present government-issued identification</a> before being allowed to vote. Despite the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/voter-id-law-algorithm/">disproportionate burden</a> that law placed on minorities and the poor, who are least likely to have such identification, the justices found it to be a legitimate way for the state to prevent voter fraud.</p>
<p>Five years later, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/570/529/#tab-opinion-1970752">by a 5-4 vote</a>, the Roberts court ended the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s requirement that states with a history of discrimination against minority groups <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/about-section-5-voting-rights-act">must get federal approval</a> before changing any voting laws. Roberts himself wrote the majority ruling that the requirement was no longer necessary and it represented an “unconstitutional violation of the power of states to regulate elections.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327490/original/file-20200413-149810-1sqlfjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Roberts court, from 2018. Seated, from left: Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel A. Alito. Standing, from left: Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett M. Kavanaugh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States_-_Roberts_Court_2018.jpg">Fred Schilling, Supreme Court of the United States/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Roberts court’s assault continues</h2>
<p>In 2017, there was a brief break in the Roberts court’s predictable ideological rulings in voting rights and election cases. In an unusual alignment, Justice Thomas joined the four liberal justices to strike down <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/581/15-1262/#tab-opinion-37363">a North Carolina law that allowed racist gerrymandering</a>.</p>
<p>But a year later, in yet another 5-4 ruling, the court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/584/16-980/#tab-opinion-3913484">allowed states to purge residents</a> from the voting rolls for, among other things, failing to vote for two years. Ohio claimed it used that failure as a rough way of identifying voters who may have moved and tried to get them to verify their residence by mailing them a postcard. Yet <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/us/politics/ohio-voter-purge.html">the effect of the law</a> was that many people who showed up to vote for a subsequent election would be prevented from actually voting.</p>
<p>And in 2019, the court again split 5-4, holding that <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/588/18-422/#tab-opinion-4114539">courts should stay out of cases</a> alleging that redistricting maps were drawn to favor one political party at another’s expense. The court concluded that while the practice of partisan gerrymandering may be distasteful, it is a political problem, not a legal one.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327491/original/file-20200413-141875-njkst5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Milwaukee high school gym was converted into a polling place on April 7, with voting booths set apart from each other and election workers wearing masks and gloves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Wisconsin-Election/6c483b43729a44b0b7a59fb80b68d388/9/0">AP Photo/Morry Gash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The future of voting rights</h2>
<p>That set the stage for the Wisconsin situation, in which the Democratic governor, the Republican-dominated state legislature, the state Supreme Court and a federal district court issued a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/wisconsin-pandemic-primary-republicans.html">series of contradictory decisions and rulings</a> about whether the election could take place and voters could have extra time to submit absentee ballots.</p>
<p>The five U.S. Supreme Court justices <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/156855/republican-party-took-supreme-court">appointed by Republican presidents</a> said the case only raised “a narrow, technical question about the absentee ballot process.” They invoked a view articulated by the Roberts court in 2006 that “lower federal courts should ordinarily <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/549/1/#tab-opinion-1962255">not alter the election rules</a> on the eve of an election,” even as the nation’s highest court did exactly that.</p>
<p>The court’s liberal justices objected. Led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, they wrote that they viewed the case as about <a href="https://qz.com/1657742/ideological-alliances-and-divides-on-the-us-supreme-court-charted/">much more than a small technicality</a>, but rather “a matter of utmost importance – to the constitutional rights of Wisconsin’s citizens, the integrity of the State’s election process, and in this most extraordinary time, the health of the Nation.” Ginsburg’s dissent warned that “the court’s decision risks that tens of thousands of voters will be disenfranchised.”</p>
<p>That decision sent what I believe to be a clear message to Americans: Don’t turn to the Supreme Court to protect your right to vote, even in the case of a genuine emergency. If the coronavirus crisis was not enough to overcome partisan divisions among the justices about something as fundamental as voting, it is hard to imagine what will. </p>
<p>Americans wanting to protect voting rights face a dilemma. With a federal judiciary no longer willing to protect Americans’ right to vote, it is left to the people themselves to do so by voting for candidates who pledge to protect the franchise. But they may <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/vote-dissociation">have a hard time accomplishing this when elections</a> are made less equal and less inclusive by the Roberts court’s decisions.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has reversed its decadeslong practice of protecting voters’ rights and removing barriers to casting ballots.Austin Sarat, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.