> kelley wonders about a cabal of ACLU lawyers, (not that kelley or I, are
> neo-cons) but I wonder too. . . . the
> perfidy of rights based liberal social engineering judicialized advocacy
> that pushes the agendas of identity politics based groupings.
> Anyway, back to my point of inquiry. How about a thread on the courts and
> social change? Maybe the lawyers on the list have read a book I haven't by
> Cass Sunstein, a good left-liberal type on this?
> How much has relying on the courts to
> enact new social rights, demobilized social movements and stoked the fires
> of middle class resentment that writers like the aforementioned Jim Sleeper
> and Thomas and Mary Edsell write about in Chain Reaction?
> Michael Pugliese
Wake up, guy. The Warren court is long dead. the only people who are relying on the courts for social change these days are the right wingers, who are running very effective attacks on affirmative action, the establishment clause and public education (with school vouchers), criminal defendants' rights, tort reform, the ability of discrimination plaintiffs to sue the states, the power of the federal government to pass effective legislation or regulation, etc.
Us ACLU types are stuck trying to hang on to a few shreds of progressive precedents from the old days, blocking Chicago from making it illegal for minorities to stand on a corner, trying to keep Christian prayer out of the public schools, etc., opposing the death penalty, and that sort of thing. I do not think anyone sensible on the liberal or left end of the spectrum is saying, oh, let's leave things to the lawyers, we will just go play Ninentendo. If there is such a person, she hasn't a clue.
I am not aware of any book by Cass Sunstein on the courts and social change, Gerald Rosenberg has such a book (The Hollow Hope), arguing that the courts have less influence than some people might have hoped--or, perhaps today, feared.
A number of people have argued that reliance on legal strategies demobilized political movements and short circuited democracy. I doubt whether this was true. For example, Brown v. Board of Education and the court-based strategy of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that led up to it seems to have energed rather than undercut the civil right movement.
A number of critics of Roe v. Wade have made this sort of change about that case, but it is hard to see that Roe undercut the very vibrant women's movement of the 70's, unless on thinks that without it that movement would have been even better. Frankly, a lot of people who say this are quasi neocons like Mary Ann Glendon who think that we should have more restrictive abortion laws.
Btw I presume it was me at whom Carl Remnick was sneering under the name of Jason as the person whose obsequiousness towards the majesty of the law ought to be given a pause by the Diallo case because the cops got off all legally and everything. However, I can recognize injustice because even though I think that our law embodies ideals worth fighting to realize. The transfer to Albany and the resulting verdict was a farce, but it's a farce because it makes a political joke of the idea of equal justice under law.
--jks