When Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court in 2006, observers predicted that Anthony Kennedy would quickly become the key figure in the nation’s jurisprudence. And recent terms have confirmed those predictions: Across a wide range of controversial constitutional issues, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Supreme Court Rules: 2004by Michael M. Uhlmann For those old enough to remember the way things used to be, the media hoopla that now attends the conclusion of almost every Supreme Court term can seem, well, a bit unseemly. The old order, to be sure, had its dramatic moments when national . . . . Continue Reading »
These days, if you announce that the Supreme Court is doing politics rather than law you will provoke more yawns than protests. But what sort of politics is the Court doing? Justice Antonin Scalia frequently charges the Court with stepping out of its judicial role and taking sides in the culture . . . . Continue Reading »
After the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of public schools in Topeka, Kansas, lawsuits promptly were brought to dismantle legally sanctioned segregation in other states. One of these was Arkansas. There, Governor Orville . . . . Continue Reading »
Several months on, we can begin to appreciate the full importance of the Supreme Court’s June 27, 2002 decision upholding the Cleveland school voucher program (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris). Anxious parents and children in Cleveland now possess a constitutionally sanctioned means to escape the . . . . Continue Reading »
Readers of First Things should by now be well-acquainted with the heated national debate—in part inspired by these very pages—over the role and legitimacy of the modern Supreme Court, armed with the power of judicial review, in a country that proclaims itself to be . . . . Continue Reading »
When the Supreme Court packs up its bags at the end of June each year, court watchers invariably scan the year’s work for evidence of ideological trends. In keeping with the myth that the current Court is “conservative,” the public is generally regaled with a chorus of alarms or expressions . . . . Continue Reading »
To help the reader understand the background of the following commentaries, we asked Robert P. George of Princeton University for a brief summary of the 1996-97 cases related to questions of morality and religion. Herewith his pulling together of the pertinent facts. His own commentary appears later . . . . Continue Reading »
This month a hundred million Americans will watch a United States Supreme Court Justice once again ask a President-elect to place his hand upon a Christian Bible and swear an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. The candidate will end his oath with “so help me God,” and . . . . Continue Reading »
This last term of the Supreme Court brought home to us with fresh clarity what it means to be ruled by an oligarchy. The most important moral, political, and cultural decisions affecting our lives are steadily being removed from democratic control. Only Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
