Future Hindsight

Supreme Court’s Agenda Although we are taught to believe the Supreme Court is a neutral institution whose primary concern is justice, it is actually an extremely powerful legal body with its own agenda. For the last 50 years, that agenda has been staunchly conservative. Instead of functioning as a check on executive and legislative powers, it operates as its own power building machine, often making decisions that favor itself or the conservative lawmakers who put a majority of the justices in power. The Supreme Court is confident in its position and its conservative views, and has no qualms about overruling democratic decisions to keep itself—and conservative lawmakers—in power. Far-Reaching Impacts Decisions made by the Supreme Court have long and far-reaching consequences. On the positive side, single Supreme Court decisions helped desegregate American schools, create due process protections like Miranda Rights, and legalize same-sex marriages. At the same time, the conservative Supreme Court has greatly in