Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Supreme Court began a decades-long expansion of Constitutional rights, beginning by outlawing segregation with 1954's Brown v. Board of Education and continuing on to establish rights to privacy, freedom of speech, interracial marriage, and more. For many Americans at the time and for years afterward, Warren and his allies established the Court as the protector of the rights of minorities against the prejudices of the majority... a legacy that continued beyond Warren's term, most famously in Roe v. Wade. 

But for many others, this was a gross usurpation of power by the Court, who were seen as "activists in robes" creating supposed rights with no basis in the Constitution. The modern conservative legal movement arose out of opposition to the Warren Court's perceived excesses, and it has now managed, through decades of advocacy in academia and politics, to both reverse some of those decisions and to change the essential role of the Court. More than half a century later: can we say who was right? Was the Warren Court a fulfillment of the Constitution or a betrayal of it? And is there any chance that the pendulum, now firmly on the conservative side, might swing back again? Join us for a panel discussion with scholars Robert Luther III, Laura Kalman, Jess Bravin, and Kate Shaw as they help us to better understand the Warren Court and its lasting impact.

This event is presented with special support from WBEZ Chicago.

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