The Context of Judicial Activism: The Endurance of the Warren Court Legacy in a Conservative Age

In this book, Frederick Lewis examines the legacy of the Warren Court, analyzing why the court’s activism survived largely intact despite the efforts of four Republican presidents over a 20-year period to replace activist federal judges with jurists committed to judicial restraint. Lewis persuasively argues that the doctrinal innovations of the 1950s, 60s and 70s were the product of fundamental changes in American society, changes which Reagan and the other conservative presidents had no power to reverse. These social, demographic, eocnomic and political changes produced a political influential constituency for judicial activism. Lewis discusses events such as the economic and political awakening of a large and growing non-white population; the entry of women into the workforce; an increase in the number and influence of fringe religious sects; the sexual revolution; and industrialization, as well as many other significant social and political phenomena that took place during these decades. The Context of Judicial Activism should be a valuable resource for students and scholars of 20th-century constitutional history and the judicial process.