The Shortcomings Of The Supreme Court

Great Essays
In 1954, the Supreme Court shifts its support of protecting economic rights during the Lochner era, to a commitment to equality liberalism. Brown is a proper use of the Supreme Court’s power. Its four valid shortcomings reveal the support Brown had from other political actors. Brown’s support provides the court legitimacy for their ruling and provided an era for equality. This era of equality allowed the court and social movements to work in synergy.
Firstly, the decision undermines the federal system that the 1787 constitution creates and forces the federal courts to micromanage local school boards without the proper implementation powers. However, this shortcoming legitimizes Brown as the Executive Branch implemented the ruling. Brown undermines
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This critique is justified because the new racial ordering is working to eliminate the racial discrimination that existed as a result of the past racial ordering. Logically, if citizens were given the option to freely associate, the individuals will not interact with other races because they were previously exposed to the racial ordering of segregation. Derrick Bell alludes to a divide in the African American community based on class, that suggests that some African Americans not interested in desegregation yet, wanted quality schools. However, Sweatt v. Painter shows “separate but equal” can never be truly equal or of the same quality because of inherent differences demonstrating the need for desegregation. Rosenberg explains that Brown was not enforceable until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and threatens to stop funding the schools as a result of not desegregating. Nonetheless, Brown’s decision to have a state enforced racial ordering is legitimate as it allows for individuals to have the possibility of eliminating the remains of Jim Crow laws and allow for an equitable society embracing equality liberalism through …show more content…
Despite these critiques Brown is legitimate because other political branches recognize the legitimacy of the court and supports it. As Urofsky states, Brown’s short opinion of eleven pages is a strategic political move to allow newspapers to print the whole opinion to appeal to the citizens’ hearts as it involves innocent school children just interested in equality. The Justices’ backgrounds suggest the decision is political as all justices, except one, lacked judicial experience. This is seen as past politician, Chief Justice Warren, broke tradition by declaring his vote before the other Justices and by visiting the other Justices’ chambers when drafting the opinion to ensure unanimity. The decision’s unanimity is political because the court legitimates their decision by acting united. Justice Frankfurter requests to look at the history of the 14th amendment because he could find no legal justification, yet nothing in the history suggests the unconstitutionality of segregation as many of the schools including those in District of Colombia and 21 states were mandatory or optional segregation. Even Justice Jackson remarks that it was hard to think that “the movement that carried the Civil War…” was desegregation. The justices ignore the history of the 14th amendment and deemed the information

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