Unprincipled

With deft, accessible prose, judicial expert Frank Ravitch guides readers through major cases decided by the Court since 2020, urgently focused on the significant impact they will have on every person in the United States.We are living at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is pursuing its ideals without regard for precedent or principle. The Court has abandoned separation of church and state, overturned Roe v. Wade, taken power away from experts in administrative agencies and given it to the courts, expanded presidential power beyond anything supportable by law or history, and limited states’ ability to protect their citizens from the impact of a pandemic and from gun crime. Professor and legal expert Frank S. Ravitch tells the story of how the post-2020 Roberts Court remade the law in its own image by mandating that “history and tradition” determine legal outcomes, while misusing and misunderstanding that same history and tradition in numerous cases. Most Americans, including policymakers, underestimate the ways in which the Court's rampant overturning of long-standing precedent and legal norms disempowers Americans. Through numerous landmark cases, Unprincipled spells out how the Court’s behavior reflects a view of the world that is at odds with nearly every principle of judicial behavior, and examines the perilous decision-making of the Supreme Court to posit a path forward that could restore balance to the Court and America.