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Explaining the Burger Court's Support for Civil Liberties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2022

Lawrence Baum
Lawrence Baum*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

For eighteen years, Supreme Court watchers have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1960s, the Court expanded legal protections for civil liberties far more than it had in any previous period. After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, many observers expected that his appointments would move the Court away from its commitment to civil liberties. When Nixon was able to appoint four new justices in his first three years in office, that expectation was strengthened. Since that time, each presidential election victory and each Supreme Court appointment by a conservative Republican has led to new hopes and fears that the Cout would abandon its strong support for civil liberties.

To a degree, these expectations already have been realized. Without doubt, the Supreme Court under Warren Burger was less supportive of civil liberties than it had been under Earl Warren. But it did not take the clear conservative position that many Court watchers had anticipated. Reflecting their surprise, a 1983 book about the Burger Court was subtitled, “The Counter-Revolution That Wasn't” (Blasi, 1983).

Type
Articles
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Winter 1987 , pp. 21 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1987

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References

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