About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

29 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 55 (2001-2002)
The White Primary Rulings: A Case Study in the Consequences of Supreme Court Decisionmaking

handle is hein.journals/flsulr29 and id is 73 raw text is: THE WHITE PRIMARY RULINGS: A CASE STUDY IN THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUPREME COURT DECISIONMAKING MICHAEL J. KLARMAN* I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 55 II. THE PRE.SMITH WHITE PRIMARY CASES ........................................................... 57 III. THE LEGAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT OF SMITH V. ALLWRIGHT AND THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY OF THE WHITE PRIMARY ............................................... 61 IV. THE CONSEQUENCES OF SMITH V. ALLWRIGHT .................................................. 69 V . CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 102 I. INTRODUCTION Political scientists and legal scholars have written a good deal in recent years on the consequences of Supreme Court decisions.1 Much of this scholarship has been skeptical of the Court's capacity to pro- duce significant social change. Most notably, Professor Gerald N. Ro- senberg has declared the notion that courts can reform society a hollow hope.2 Rosenberg shows that Brown v. Board of Education3 produced very little school desegregation until Congress passed landmark civil rights legislation to implement the Court's ruling.4 He also makes a strong case that Brown played a less instrumental role in the 1960s civil rights movement than is commonly believed.' Simi- *James Monroe Professor of Law, Albert C. Tate, Jr., Research Professor, and Professor of History, University of Virginia. B.A., M.A., University of Pennsylvania; J.D., Stanford Law School; D. Phil., Oxford University. I am grateful to Daryl Levinson, Rick Pildes, and Mark Tushnet for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. Stephanie Russek provided ex- traordinary research assistance, and, as always, I am indebted to the reference librarians at the University of Virginia School of Law for the superb research help they regularly provide. A revised version of this Article will appear in a chapter of my forthcoming book, provisionally entitled NEITHER HERO, NOR VILLAIN: THE SUPREME COURT, RACE AND THE CONSTITUTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (Oxford Univ. Press). As the Mason Ladd lec- turer at The Florida State University College of Law in February, 2001, 1 was privileged to present material from a different chapter of that book. I am grateful to both the students and the faculty at Florida State for the warm and enthusiastic reception they accorded me on that occasion. I owe special thanks to Mark Seidenfeld for making that occasion possi- ble. 1. See, e.g., GERALD N. ROSENBERG, THE HOLLOW HOPE: CAN COURTS BRING ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE? (1991); LEVERAGING THE LAW: USING THE COURTS TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL CHANGE (David A. Schultz ed., 1998); STEPHEN L. WASBY, THE IMPACT OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: SOME PERSPECTIVES (1970). 2. ROSENBERG, supra note 1. 3. 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 4. ROSENBERG, supra note 1, at 49-54. 5. Id. at 107-56. See also Gerald N. Rosenberg, Brown Is Dead! Long Live Brown!: The Endless Attempt to Canonize a Case, 80 VA. L. REV. 161 (1994) (giving Brown almost no credit for inspiring the civil rights movement). But cf David J. Garrow, Hopelessly Hol- low History: Revisionist Devaluing of Brown v. Board of Education, 80 VA. L. REV. 151 (1994) (giving Brown tremendous credit); Michael J. Klarman, Brown, Racial Change, and the Civil Rights Movement, 80 VA. L. REV. 7 (1994) (arguing that Brown indirectly acceler-

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most