The making of the Burger court -- Prelude: the 1971 term -- Reapportionment and voting rights -- The battle over obscenity -- Criminal procedure -- School desegregation -- Equal protection and wealth discrimination -- The problem of sex discrimination -- Aid to parochial schools -- The abortion conflict -- Conclusion
Summary
Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education and continuing with a series of decisions that, among other things, expanded the reach of the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court that Richard Nixon inherited had presided over a progressive revolution in the law. But by 1972 Nixon had managed to replace four members of the so-called Warren Court with justices more aligned with his own law-and-order conservatism. Nixon's appointees-Warren Burger as Chief Justice and Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and William Rehnquist as associate justices-created a politically diverse bench, one that included not only c
