SCOTUS Overturns Activist Decisions From the 1970s

---

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the last 14 months, the U.S. Supreme Court has in a historic fashion overturned four landmark decisions from the 1970s. The activist Burger Court of the 1970s left an unconstitutional legacy. It penned major decisions regarding the First Amendment Establishment Clause, abortion, narrowing employee protections under Title VII involving religious discrimination, and imposing affirmative action for admission to colleges and universities.

The current majority of Justices on the High Court today subscribe to originalism, a legal philosophy that Justice Amy Comey Barrett defines as where the “constitutional text means what it did at the time it was ratified and that this original public meaning is authoritative.” Originalism maintains judges are bound by the words of the Constitution as well as their meaning at the time when they were added to the Constitution.

The Burger Court, however, clearly took a judicial activist approach with four of its precedential rulings reading into the text and carving out judge-made rules that had consequential results.