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Is it the Right Revolution? On Tushnet's The Rights Revolution in The Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2012

Rivka Weill
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Extract

This is yet another manuscript by one of the most interesting and prolific American constitutional law professors that the Critical Legal Studies movement has produced. Mark Tushnet has written extensively and influentially in the fields of both American and comparative constitutional law. He is a known expert on twentieth century American legal history, bringing this expertise to bear in writing his ambitious and most recent book, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century.

This review of an early draft of the book will consist of three parts. The first portrays Tushnet's descriptive enterprise in a nutshell. The second discusses the historical dimensions of Tushnet's work. The last evaluates its contribution to legal theory along the lines suggested by Alon Harel.

Type
Symposium on Mark Tushnet's The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , 2009 , pp. 483 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2009

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References

1 His Harvard bibliography enumerates 161 publications, including 34 books, notable among them are the famous text books, Stone, Geoffrey R. et al. , Constitutional Law: Cases, Text, Materials (5th ed. 2005)Google Scholar; Jackson, Vicki C. & Tushnet, Mark, Comparative Constitutional Law (1999)Google Scholar.

2 Tushnet, Mark, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century (2009)Google Scholar [hereinafter Tushnet, Rights Revolution].

3 See infra note 40.

4 See this issue Tushnet, Mark, Précis, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century, 42 Isr. L. Rev. 446, 446 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Constitutional law professors usually divide their syllabi to issues of structure (such as federalism and separation of powers) and rights.

6 Tushnet, Précis, supra note 4, at 451.

7 United States v. Carolene Products, 304 U.S. 144 (1938).

8 Tushnet, Précis, supra note 4, at 452.

9 Id. at 456.

10 Tushnet, Mark, The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925–1950 (1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)Google Scholar.

12 United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

13 Tushnet, Précis, supra note 4, at 447.

14 See, e.g., Epp, Charles R., The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective (1998)Google Scholar.

15 See, e.g., Elster, Jon, Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe: An Introduction, 58 U. Chi. L. Rev. 447 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See, e.g., Gardbaum, Stephen, The New Commonwealth Model of Constitutionalism, 49 Am. J. Comp. L. 707 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weill, Rivka, Sui Generis? The Hybrid Israeli Constitutional Experience (May 8, 2009), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1401360CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See, e.g., The Concept of Human Dignity in Human Rights Discourse (Kretzmer, David & Klein, Eckart eds., 2002)Google Scholar; Fletcher, George P., Human Dignity as a Constitutional Value, 22 U.W. Ontario L. Rev. 171 (1984)Google Scholar.

18 Tushnet, Précis, supra note 4, at 446.

19 U.S. CONST. amnds. XIII-XV.

20 See, e.g., Ackerman, Bruce, We the People: Foundations (1991)Google Scholar; Ackerman, Bruce, We the People: Transformations (1998)Google Scholar.

21 See, e.g., Hirschl, Ran, Towards Juristocracy: The Origin and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (2004)Google Scholar; Sweet, Alec Stone, Governing with Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Global Expansion of Judicial Power (Tate, C. Neal & Vallinder, Torbjörn eds., 1995)Google Scholar.

22 Bush v. Gore, 121 S. Ct. 525 (2000).

23 See, e.g., Balkin, Jack M., Bush v. Gore and the Boundary between Law and Politics, 110 Yale L. J. 1407 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klarman, Michael J., Bush v. Gore Through the Lens of Constitutional History, 89 Calif. L. Rev. 1721 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Tushnet, Mark, Taking the Constitution A way from the Courts (1999)Google Scholar.

25 For an emphasis on the executive branch, see in this issue Cohn, Margit, “Everything Flows”: On Mark Tushnet's Rights Revolution, 42 Isr. L. Rev. 472 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 U.S. CONST. amnd. XVI, XVII & IX.

27 See, e.g., Forbath, William E., Constitutional Welfare Rights: A History, Critique and Reconstruction, 69 Fordham L. Rev. 1821 (2001)Google Scholar.

28 See Balkin, Jack M., Symposium: 50 Years of Brown v. Board of Education: Essay: What Brown Teaches Us about Constitutional Theory, 90 Va. L. Rev. 1537 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 But see Selmi, Michael, Interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act: Why the Supreme Court Rewrote the Statute, and Why Congress Did Not Care, 76 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 522 (2008)Google Scholar (discussing the Supreme Court's narrow interpretation of the statute).

30 See, e.g., Rosenberg, Gerald N., The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? (2d ed. 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klarman, Michael J., From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004)Google Scholar.

31 See, e.g., Brown-Nagin, Tomiko, Elites, Social Movements, and the Law: The Case of Affrmative Action, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1436 (2005)Google Scholar.

32 Tushnet: Rights Revolution, supra Note 2. at 14.

33 For an interesting Symposium on the Chief Justice and the Institutional Judiciary see 154 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1463 (2006)Google Scholar.

34 Tushnet, Mark, The New Constitutional Order (2003)Google Scholar.

35 Id. see especially chs. 2-3.

36 Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919).

37 Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

38 See, e.g., Kreimer, Seth F., Sunlight, Secrets, and Scarlet Letters: the Tension between Privacy and Disclosure in Constitutional Law, 140 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 For an interesting empirical study of this phenomenon, see Epstein, Lee et al. , The Supreme Court During Crisis: How War Affects Only Non-War Cases, 80 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1 (2005)Google Scholar (arguing that during war times courts decide war cases by shifting their focus to institutional process concerns but decide cases unrelated to the war in a more conservative fashion).

40 See in this issue Harel, Alon, The Vices of Institutiona1 Instrumentalism: A Comment on Tushnet, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century, 42 Isr. L. Rev. 464 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eylon, Yuval & Harel, Alon, The Right to Judicial Review, 92 Va. L. Rev. 991 (2006)Google Scholar. See also Alon Harel & Tsvi Kahana, The Easy Core Case for Judicial Review, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1272493.

41 Tushnet, Taking the Constrution Away from the Courts, supra note 24.

42 Harel, The Vices of Institutional Instrumentalism, supra note 40, at 465:

According to institutional instrumentalism, institutions, including courts and legislatures, are exclusively perceived by individuals as instruments to realize substantive political and social goals. Hence individuals are disposed to grant more powers to institutions that they perceive are favorable toward their goals and fewer powers to institutions that they perceive are unfavorable toward their goal.

43 Tushnet, Précis, supra note 4, at 460.

44 See Dotan, Yoav & Hofnung, Menachem, Legal Defeats-Political Wins: Why Do Elected Representatives Go to Court?, 38 Comp. Pol. Stud. 75 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Dor, Gal & Hofnung, Menachem, Litigation as Political Participation, 11 Isr. Studies 131 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some constitutional systems prevent legislators from challenging statutes in courts, see Dorsen, Norman et al. , Comparative Constitutionalism 133–36 (2003)Google Scholar.

45 See Bickel, Alexander M., The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (2d ed. 1986)Google Scholar.

46 See, e.g. Barak, Aharon, The Judge in a Democracy (2006)Google Scholar.

47 See, e.g., Feldman, David, Public Interest Litigation and Constitutional Theory in Comparative Perspective, 55 Mod. L. Rev. 44 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mizrahi, Shlomo & Meydani, Assaf, Political Participation through the Judicial System: Exit, Voice and Quasi-Exit in Israeli Society, 8 Isr. Stud. 118 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.