The Supreme Court is the most powerful
judicial body in existence. They
interpret the document that was used in the foundation of the country and can
check both the President and Congress. The Constitution states in Article III,
Section 1: “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one
supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to
time ordain and establish.” This also
means that anything determined by a lower court can be overruled by the supreme
court, but anything determined by the supreme court cannot be overturned unless
it is overruled by the supreme court itself.
As confusing as that may sound, it has happened many times. Arguably the most influential overturn was of
the ruling for Plessy v Ferguson case.
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| Homer Plessy |
This case was an attempt to make
separate but equal illegal, however, the court saw separate but equal as constitutional
as long as the facilities were actually equal (they were not). They stated in a 7-1 decision that the Separate
Car Act did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Many people were outraged by this decision
and lost their trust in the supreme court.
Certain colored individuals then set out to prove this decision as
incorrect.
These individuals fought back and
set up a case now known as “Brown v Board of Education”. This case was all about segregation in public
schools. One piece of data that was used
in the final decision as evidence was a study showing that African American children
preferred white dolls over darker colored dolls proving that they thought white
dolls to be superior to those of their own skin color. Using this data and other points, the court
unanimously decided that separate but equal was unconstitutional and violated
the 14th Amendment; this allowed for the start of desegregation!
The supreme court justices, as stated in the video, can disagree on some very basic fundamental things surrounding
the constitution and how to interpret it but the one thing that remains solid
between all the justices is the idea that they all share the same basic goal of
doing the right thing for the citizens of the United States. As messed up as the upholding of separate but
equal was, the court realized its unpopular opinion and was made aware of its’
inability to be reliable in all settings, so it was overturned. For this reason and many others, the supreme
court is critical to the integrity of the constitution and the ability for the
country to run on such an old document, despite the unimaginable changes that
have happened in the time since its’ writing
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