Justice Deferred
Race and the Supreme Court
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- $35.99
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- $35.99
Publisher Description
“[A] learned and thoughtful portrayal of the history of race relations in America…authoritative and highly readable…[An] impressive work.”
—Randall Kennedy, The Nation
“This comprehensive history…reminds us that the fight for justice requires our constant vigilance.”
—Ibram X. Kendi
“Remarkable for the breadth and depth of its historical and legal analysis…makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the US Supreme Court’s role in America’s difficult racial history.”
—Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality
From the Cherokee Trail of Tears to Brown v. Board of Education to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, Orville Vernon Burton and Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the Supreme Court’s race record—uplifting, distressing, and even disgraceful. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence, detailing the development of legal and constitutional doctrine, the justices’ reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings.
In addressing such issues as the changing interpretations of the Reconstruction amendments, Japanese internment in World War II, the exclusion of Mexican Americans from juries, and affirmative action, the authors bring doctrine to life by introducing the people and events at the heart of the story of race in the United States. Much of the fragility of civil rights in America is due to the Supreme Court, but as this sweeping history reminds us, the justices still have the power to make good on the country’s promise of equal rights for all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clemson history professor Burton (The Age of Lincoln) and civil rights attorney Derfner deliver a comprehensive survey of the Supreme Court's role in the battle for racial equality. Analyzing more than 200 rulings, the authors make clear that the court has more often been an impediment to progress than an ally of it. They put famous cases, including Dred Scott and Brown v. Board of Education, in the context of judicial precedents and contemporaneous politics, and spotlight the importance of more obscure rulings, including the 5-4 decision in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio (1989), which shifted to the plaintiff the burden of proving that "racially different results" produced by a company's hiring practices didn't have a legitimate business justification. Spanning American history from the colonial era to the present day, Burton and Derfner offer copious evidence that justices have been influenced by the politics of their respective eras, and, in some cases—including an 1876 decision striking down key parts of a law protecting voting rights for African Americans—have ignored a statute's wording in order to rollback minority rights. This meticulous deep dive into the court's mixed record on civil rights is a must-read for legal scholars.
