This thesis examines the existence of activism versus restraint in the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist Courts in the area of school desegregation, through comparing the contents of the decisions handed down by these respective judicial bodies. The cases that were utilized in this study were specifically chosen because they were the outstanding school desegregation cases of the times. The issue under examination was to consider if the substance of the various Supreme Court rulings issued by the three Courts reflected the spirit of the remedial objectives of the Warren Court, which originated from the 1954-55 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decisions. The criteria utilized by the Rehnquist Court in determining whether federal remedial supervision should be relaxed were considered. Additionally, the study demonstrated that an evolutionary progression from that of Court interventionism to local school district accommodation emerged as evidenced by successive Court litigation.
On the way to offering a new analysis of the basis of the Supreme Court's iconic decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Jeffrey Hockett critiques an array of theories that have arisen to explain it and Supreme Court decision making generally. Drawing upon justices' books, articles, correspondence, memoranda, and draft opinions, A Storm over This Court demonstrates that the puzzle of Brown's basis cannot be explained by any one theory. Borrowing insights from numerous approaches to analyzing Supreme Court decision making, this study reveals the inaccuracy of the popular perception that most of the justices merely acted upon a shared, liberal preference for an egalitarian society when they held that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A majority of the justices were motivated, instead, by institutional considerations, including a recognition of the need to present a united front in such a controversial case, a sense that the Court had a significant role to play in international affairs during the Cold War, and a belief that the Court had an important mission to counter racial injustice in American politics. A Storm over This Court demonstrates that the infusion of justices' personal policy preferences into the abstract language of the Constitution is not the only alternative to an originalist approach to constitutional interpretation. Ultimately, Hockett concludes that the justices' decisions in Brown resist any single, elegant explanation. To fully explain this watershed decision--and, by implication, others--it is necessary to employ a range of approaches dictated by the case in question.
In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, racial equality in American public education appeared to have a bright future. But, for many, that brightness dimmed considerably following the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Milliken v. Bradley (1974). While the literature on Brown is voluminous, Joyce Baugh's measured and insightful study offers the only available book-length analysis of Milliken, the first major desegregation case to originate outside the South. As Baugh chronicles, when the city of Detroit sought to address school segregation by busing white students to black schools, a Michigan statute signed by Gov. William Milliken overruled the plan. In response, the NAACP sued the state on behalf of Ronald Bradley and other affected parents. The federal district court sided with the plaintiffs and ordered the city and state to devise a "metropolitan" plan that crossed city lines into the suburbs and encompassed a total of fifty-four school districts. The state, however, appealed that decision all the way to the Supreme Court. In its controversial 5-4 decision, the Court's new conservative majority ruled that, since there was no evidence that the suburban school districts had deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation, the lower court's remedy was "wholly impermissible" and not justified by Brown—which the Court said could only address de jure, not de facto segregation. While the Court's majority expressed concern that the district court's remedy threatened the sanctity of local control over schools, the minority contended that the decision would allow residential segregation to be used as a valid excuse for school segregation. To reconstruct the proceedings and give all claims a fair hearing, Baugh interviewed lawyers representing both sides in the case, as well as the federal district judge who eventually closed the litigation; plumbed the papers of Justices Blackmun, Brennan, Douglas, and Marshall; talked with the main reporter who covered the case; and researched the NAACP files on Milliken. What emerges is a detailed account of how and why Milliken came about, as well as its impact on the Court's school-desegregation jurisprudence and on public education in American cities.
A survey and analysis of the historical context, key figures, and lasting legacy of the Warren Court. Earl Warren served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1953 until the end of the tumultuous 1960s. This book shows why conservative critics still view this court as out of control and leftist, while its liberal fans still cheer what they view as the court's progressive activism. Among this court's contributions to American life are the rights accorded to the accused in Miranda v. Arizona, the limits it placed on school prayer, and the abolition of school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. To understand such basic American principles as equal protection, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, the rights of the accused, and the right to privacy, every citizen should understand the Warren Court.
The magnitude of the Burger Court has been underestimated by historians. When Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards dotted the landscape, especially in the South. Nixon promised to transform the Supreme Court--and with four appointments, including a new chief justice, he did. This book tells the story of the Supreme Court that came in between the liberal Warren Court and the conservative Rehnquist and Roberts Courts: the seventeen years, 1969 to 1986, under Chief Justice Warren Burger. It is a period largely written off as a transitional era at the Supreme Court when, according to the common verdict, "nothing happened." How wrong that judgment is. The Burger Court had vitally important choices to make: whether to push school desegregation across district lines; how to respond to the sexual revolution and its new demands for women's equality; whether to validate affirmative action on campuses and in the workplace; whether to shift the balance of criminal law back toward the police and prosecutors; what the First Amendment says about limits on money in politics. The Burger Court forced a president out of office while at the same time enhancing presidential power. It created a legacy that in many ways continues to shape how we live today. Written with a keen sense of history and expert use of the justices' personal papers, this book sheds new light on an important era in American political and legal history.--Adapted from dust jacket.
Today, integration is as much a part of America's public school system as Friday night football and complaints about cafeteria food. But America has not always opened the doors of its schools to all races. School integration occurred through the tireless efforts of countless men and women - some white, many black - who took their ideals and dreams about America and what it represents and worked to make them not only the law of the land, but acceptable to the vast majority of citizens. Here is the story of the relentless legal campaign launched by the NAACP civil rights organization and a persistent black lawyer named Thurgood Marshall, and how it changed history forever. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century.
Positing the hypothesis that the United States Supreme Court makes rather than finds the law, this analysis of race relations cases provides a model by which to examine Court strategies. While the primary focus of the study is on Brown v. Board of Education, which was central to the “social revolution” started by the Court in its 1954 and 1955 rulings and which continued, perhaps more consciously, thereafter, this is not simply another book about the School Desegregation Cases of 1954 and 1955. Ranging back to 1883, the authors summarize in an early chapter the cases before Brown. Then, after dealing with Brown, the authors proceed topically to explore the Court’s rulings in other areas of race relations in order to provide the larger strategic context within which Brown and its progeny were decided. In addressing the practical question of Supreme Court behavior in a long line of desegregation cases, the authors look at the entire pattern of the Court’s strategy and behavior, not only the cases the Court decided with full opinions but also its summary actions and its refusals to grant review. Political scientists, historians, constitutional lawyers, jurists, and interested general readers will find this book essential to an understanding of the evolution of American law in the matter of race relations. It may well provide a model for future studies of Supreme Court strategies in other areas.
