The Warren and Burger Courts

Paper Summary:

It is claimed that the eras of Earl Warren and Warren Burger were marked by a philosophical stance of "judicial activism," meaning that both of these chief justices used their judicial powers to correct social, political, and legal ills through judicial action, as opposed to objective constitutional review. This essay asserts that the collected rulings of these two courts did, in fact, improve the overall state of the country in terms of the rights of our citizens to pursue lives as free from oppressive intolerance as possible. It examines six rulings (three from each court, in chronological order), some of which support this assertion, and a couple that do not (for the sake of balance). Both the rulings themselves and some of the effects of these rulings upon American society are described to reach a conclusion about the overall impact of these courts upon America.

From the Paper:

In 1955, the (new) Warren Court decided unanimously to support the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education [349 U.S. 294]. The decision (at least technically) ended the racial segregation in the public schools that was legal under the Jim Crow laws of the South (and deemed constitutional for decades under Plessy v. Ferguson). The decision rested upon the assumption that "separate but equal" systems are inherently unequal because they deny people of color the opportunity to obtain an education with white people (with whom, the argument continued, the future lawyers and doctors would have to work). The merits of the case were decided relatively quickly, in part because during the course of the deliberations, then-Chief Justice Vinson died, leaving Warren to take over as Chief Justice. He wanted the case decided as quickly as possible given the unrest that was increasing in many parts of the country."

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