The uproar over Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade dramatically intensified a long-running argument about one of America’s bedrock judicial institutions.
If judging is different from politics, as Chief Justice John Roberts said when he was sworn in 17 years ago, many Americans – especially liberal Democrats – would argue the current court has badly blurred the lines. Indeed, polls show growing numbers of Americans hold an unfavorable view of the high court.
The Supreme Court has always been a political body, and it has faced criticism from the beginning for controversial rulings that shaped national life for generations. In 1857, as the country crept toward disunion, the court handed down its most infamous ruling, an outrage to both the Constitution and equal justice.
In this episode of History As It Happens, constitutional scholar Akhil Amar of Yale University discusses the ugly side of the Supreme Court’s history, a story marked by rulings upholding racial segregation, forced sterilizations and the internment of Japanese-Americans, among other injustices.
“You’re right about history, and you’re also right that today the Supreme Court is perhaps held in less high regard than maybe 20 or 30 years ago, but the court is still, and justifiably so, held in higher regard than the other branches of government,” said Mr. Amar, the author of “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840.”
“It’s the least dysfunctional of our branches of government at the present moment and, in general, better than it has been at various moments in our history.”
Mr. Amar considers himself a liberal originalist. He disagreed with the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that established a right to abortion nationwide on constitutional grounds, even though he is personally pro-choice.
Listen to Akhil Amar explain his opposition to Roe v. Wade and its parallels with the Dred Scott decision, by downloading this episode of History As It Happens.
