Barry Friedman
The Will of the People
Most people who think about it, no doubt, consider the US Supreme Court to be the protector of minority and constitutional rights against majority oppression.
But is that right?
In The Will of the People I argue that, on the major issues, over time, the Justices tend to come into line with popular opinion.
At its core The Will of the People is a historical narrative of the relationship between public opinion and Supreme Court decisions. It tells this story from Independence to 2005, when Chief Justice Rehnquist dies.
Covered along the way are major cases and events like the full story of Marbury v. Madison (the Supreme Court’s most misunderstood case), the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, the Bork nomination, Roe v. Wade, Bush v. Gore, and the fight over affirmation action.
The meat of the book is not the telling of these stories, though each is interesting. I have painstakingly researched how the public reacted to them, and how those reactions influenced the Justices on the Supreme Court.
Is it good for the Supreme Court to be responsive to the popular will? This is hardly what the Framers imagined. I leave my answer to readers of the book.
Editor: Erind Pajo
The Will of the People
Barry Friedman The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution Farrar, Strauss and Giroux 624 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches ISBN 978 0374532376 ISBN 978 0374220341
Available here →April 4, 2011
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Barry Friedman
Barry Friedman is the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. For twenty-five years, he has had one foot in the academy and one foot in legal practice. He has been a clerk with Judge Phyllis Kravitch on the Eleventh Circuit, practiced at Davis, Polk & Wardwell, taught at the University of Alabama, Georgetown University, Vanderbilt University, and now NYU. He has published over fifty academic articles in leading journals, and, along with Steven Burbank, co-edited Judicial Independence: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Friedman has been the affiliate president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, and he contributes regularly to The New Republic, The New York Times, The American Lawyer, Forbes.com, and others. The Will of the People, featured in his Rorotoko interview, is his first book.
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Over time, the Supreme Court comes into line with public opinion.
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