On 3/2/20, Hunter hosted this program.
Roosevelt House welcomed New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen to discuss his new book, Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America. This revelatory study examines the direction of the Supreme Court over the last 50 years since the Nixon administration.
In 1969, newly elected president Richard Nixon appointed four conservative justices in just three years, ending its previous liberal majority and setting the Court on a rightward course that continues today. Before this upheaval, the Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, had been a powerful force for equality and inclusion, expanding civil rights for the poor and racial minorities and promoting democratic participation.
In Supreme Inequality, Adam Cohen surveys the most significant Supreme Court rulings since the Nixon era and argues that only rarely has the Court in recent decades veered from its course of advancing inequality. His analysis shows many of the Warren Court’s greatest successes — in areas such as school desegregation, voting rights, and protecting workers — giving way to rulings favoring corporations and the most privileged Americans. Mr. Cohen will be in conversation with Dorothy Samuels, a member of the Roosevelt House advisory board and a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, who served for 30 years on The New York Times editorial board.
Welcoming remarks by Roosevelt House Public Programming Curator Mac Barrett.
Watch the discussion below.
