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The Supreme Court and the Protection of Minority Rights: An Empirical Examination of Racial Discrimination Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Francine Sanders Romero
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Abstract

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This inquiry provides a basic assessment of the impact of three potential determinants of racial discrimination cases in the U.S. Supreme Court since 1954. The research design provides two improved methods of explicating this issue. First, the model allows for a comparison of basic Hamiltonian institutionalism (i.e., the bulwark thesis), majoritarianism, and attitudinalism in a single test, as opposed to previous studies that tended to examine only two theoretical approaches at a time. Second, the majoritarian approach is given more careful consideration through the use of theoretical and empirical evidence, which allows the subtleties of public opinion in this area to be assessed. The findings show some support for the basic bulwark prediction over majoritarianism—decisions fail to reflect majority opinion trends. The bulwark thesis fails to receive full support, however, since the ideologies of the Justices also display a significant influence on outcomes.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , 2000 , pp. 291 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Middle Tennessee State University for a grant that supported the initial research and the anonymous reviewers for very helpful suggestions.

References

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(See also Appendix.)..Google Scholar