The Rehnquist Court and Civil Rights (Applied Legal Philosophy)

The United States has a distinctive dualist government system whereby the elected government must share its responsibilities with parties that have no mandate from the people. It is seen as a good feature of the American system that the party in power cannot always prevent others from securing policies it may disapprove. The Supreme Court is said to be a co-equal branch of government, one institutional mechanism by means of which counter-majoritarian, dualist principles are actualized. This kind of leadership can be seen to be desirable between 1955-1986 when the Supreme Court, under Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger used judicial authority to expand the protection offered to individuals and groups by the Bill of Rights. For example, it redefined the separation of Church and State doctrine to eliminate prayer from public schools, recognized privacy as a right to free sexuality from the shackles of religious morality and to forbid state governments from preventing pregnant women from securing abortions.