October 5, 2006
Earl Warren Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 11:15 AM EST Fifty-three years ago today, Earl Warren, who as wartime attorney general and governor of California had supported the forced detention of his state’s Japanese-American citizens, was sworn in as chief justice of the United States. Just months after assuming office, Warren brokered a unanimous decision among his mutually antagonistic and divided associate justices banning segregation in public schools, thus delivering the first in a long series of rulings that broadened civil liberties for all Americans—particularly for minorities who had heretofore fallen outside the full protection of the law.
Scholars have long speculated about the motives behind Warren’s constitutional liberalism. It was Warren, after all, a man who had been complicit in one of the most egregious violations of civil rights in American history, who presided over court decisions mandating equal apportionment of legislative districts; establishing defendants’ right to competent legal representation and to learning their “Miranda” rights upon booking; affirming citizens’ rights to birth control; and striking down state segregation and “miscegenation” statutes.
Some writers have argued that Warren devoted his 16 years on the Court to making amends for his contribution to the detention of California’s Japanese-American citizens. This may well have been the case, though he studiously avoided any public mention of the episode in his later years. Another plausible explanation for Warren’s judicial liberalism was that it suited his political temperament. A leader of the moderate wing of the GOP, Gov. Warren had presided over the construction of California’s extensive systems of state schools, highways, colleges and universities, and hospitals; he had also fought unsuccessfully to establish a state health-insurance system. In this sense, he was comfortable with the expansion of state power (though as governor he also favored lower sales taxes) and favored using that state power to enhance the lives of individual citizens. That said, the brand of liberalism that Warren’s court championed focused on protecting minorities against the tyranny of majorities, and on broadening the scope of individual liberties; it’s not at all clear that this judicial liberalism flowed naturally from a belief in statist approaches to promoting the health, safety, and education of the citizenry.
Whatever Warren’s motivations, there’s no doubting that his court left a permanent imprint on American life. No chief justice since Warren has had as strong an impact. Warren Burger and William Rehnquist were strong chiefs, to be sure, but they presided over an ongoing argument about how to adjust either downward or upward the judicial legacy of Earl Warren. Recently The New York Times speculated that the defining characteristics of the Roberts court will make themselves evident in the coming year. Roberts may yet prove to be a deft chief justice. But he too will be living in the long shadow of Earl Warren.
|
