Year: 1978
Type: article
Abstract: Despite the ignominious failure of Brown v. Board of Education I to end racial segregation in the nation's public schools (indeed, there are probably more children attending segregated public schools today than there were in 1954),2 that decision is probably still regarded by much of the public as the high point in Mr. Justice Marshall's career.Brown, of course, represented the culmination of many years of Justice Marshall's work as a brilliantly successful civil rights lawyer.3 It marked the fruition of an extended effort to forge, through court decisions, a constitutional doctrine defining the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Constitution as dynamic instruments capable of effectively removing all real life impediments to the various forms, remnants and vestiges of racial discrimination.Justice Marshall sought to make the 15th Amendment similarly efficacious in barring the denial of equal franchise rights for racial reasons.I believe, however, that Justice Marshall's Supreme Court opinions contain a legacy of faith in our Constitution as a document designed to nurture democratic and egalitarian values; faith in our law as the protector of the poor and the powerless; and faith in the survival of our social and political system as an open society, that will prove to be his most enduring contribution to the development of American constitutional jurisprudence and will provide him an eminence that will far outshine and outlive whatever fame he has gained as a civil rights advocate.In view of Justice Marshall's civil rights background and his unique status as the "first black" on the High Court, it is particularly interesting to examine his opinions against the background of the Court's steady movement away from any particular guardianship of individual rights to a concentrated concern for the effective functioning of societal institutions, though a diminution of individual freedom may inevitably result.4 Mr. Justice Marshall, along with other blacks in positions of public prominence, must assume not only the traditional burdens and responsibilities that go hand in hand with the powers and privileges of public office, but also the additional weight and pressure of fulfilling a representational role, i.e., as a * U.S. District Court Judge. 1.
Author: Robert Carter
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1145959961