Back in June, the Supreme Court issued its decision invoking Brown v Board Of Education to end racial quota systems in Louisville and Seattle public schools. Regardless of where you stand on this issue, legal support of diversity is a an assumptive underpinning of our lives that anyone born from 1965 forward has had to take for granted.The reaction dramatized what a swing this was:
As Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his blistering dissent, this decision “upsets settled expectations, creates legal uncertainty, and threatens to produce considerable further litigation, aggravating race-related conflict.” Judge John Paul Stevens went further, noting the “cruel irony” in the majority opinion’s evocation of Brown v. the Board of Education as justification for its position, proclaiming that “it is my firm conviction that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.”
Regardless of whether you think this decision good or bad, it’s still a fascinating twist in our recent history, and that twist is the subject of Jeffrey Toobin’s new book The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court. Using the same style Bob Woodward uses to mixed effect in his books — top to bottom sources speaking without attribution — Toobin paints a colorful, if incomplete feeling, view of the last 15 years of the Court’s life. The color comes from the obvious high level of access he had to certain of the Justices or their top staffers (especially O’Connor, Souter and Scalia) , while the incompleteness stems from the sense that other of the Justices were less willing to participlate (Thomas, Stevens, Roberts and Alito).
The book’s core thesis is that the Supreme Court, as one might fear, is led more by ideology than legal sense. Of course, this on its face is not surprising when any Court vote, with the same set of facts before it and high level of intellect applied, can lead to a wide variety of opinions on the same issue. The Nine’s true value is in tracing the story of how the Court (and its people) moved from left to right on so many issues and basic tenets in the last few years, from reliable protector of certain attitudes about privacy, liberty and a certain style of government to something far less willing to support these assumptions in the years ahead. It also clearly demonstrates that the centrists still hold the true power in the Court, though because of the hyper-political climate around Court nominees, the number of centrists is declining over time.
Toobin misses the chance to be explicit about the biggest implication of the rise of the Roberts Court. This book is really about the dismantling of the last line of defense of the New Deal. It also could have used one last edit-rinse (at least four times we are told that Souter’s judicial heroes are Harlan and Hand), but it I’m pleased to report that he also clearly and efficiently explains the contentious legal issues behind recent key cases.
All in all, The Nine is a valuable read for anyone who wants to understand the often-eccentric people behind the Court and how the institution uses its power.
Excerpts at CNN
Fresh skunk does not smell anything like the mildly unpleasant musk you occasionally pick up driving down the street. It is insanely intense. Imagine eating a large moist purple onion while standing next to a pile of burning tires and you’re about halfway there.
