Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
Civics 101’s host Nick Capodice joins Julia to talk about Supreme Court rulings, what really happens after nine judges deliver a decision and the limits of those decisions.
You can listen to Civics 101 here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Transcript
Nick, a quick review. What powers does the Supreme Court have?
Well, their powers have changed an awful lot since our founding. Initially, the Supreme Court had relatively few powers granted in the Constitution. However, the big change, the Supreme Court gave itself its most famous power: judicial review, which is that they are the arbiters of what is and is not constitutional law.
And Nick, when a decision comes down, do we the people have to comply? Do the executive or legislative branches have to comply?
So the Supreme Court rules on laws. You know, it doesn't decide if somebody is guilty or not. And what was interesting to me in making this episode is to learn about the numerous times that the court wasn't involved at all in determining if something was constitutional or not. And more often, when the court handed down a decision, Congress and the president just went ahead and did stuff anyway that was in direct opposition to that decision.
One example is when the Supreme Court ruled in the early 1800s that the state of Georgia did not have the right to determine possession of Cherokee lands. Then after that, Congress and Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They used a patently fraudulent treaty as justification. A few years later, over 100,000 people were forced, and when I say forced, I mean marched under military control a thousand miles to leave their homes. So what the Supreme Court decided had no bearing whatsoever on what actually happened.
So how influential are Supreme Court rulings? Are they catalysts of public opinion? Or maybe is it the other way around?
That is a very interesting question, Julia. And to answer it, I'm going to use an example. One of the Supreme Court's most lauded rulings [was] Brown v. Board of Education, 1954. This was the decision that ended segregation in public schools. At that time, 1954, the general national public opinion was very much against segregation, but a minority of people and a minority of states were very much for segregation. So when this decision came down, a lot of people were elated and understandably so.
But did Brown v. Board of Education actually end segregation? Absolutely not. States took decades to make good on that ruling. And desegregation, when it did happen, didn't happen because nine justices said it should. It happened through brutal sacrifice and protests. People putting their lives, people putting their physical bodies in danger and fighting for their civil rights. That's what ended segregation. So yes, Brown v. Board [of Education], it was a great decision. But as to its efficacy, I want to end by saying that one town in Mississippi finally desegregated its schools by court order in 2016.
Sometimes, we might not always agree with the Supreme Court ruling. What can we do when we disagree with one? Can we do anything?
I think the most important thing is to not let nine people who are now and have always been political in nature, determine for you what is good and what is just. You know what is right. And so if you disagree with the court's decision in interpreting the Constitution, your job is to elect officials who will fight those decisions or who will amend the Constitution. We haven't had a truly new amendment in over 50 years. I want to end this thought with something my guest on this episode reminded me of. It's a quote by Judge Learned Hand and he said, “Do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes. Believe me, these are false hopes.”
