PFAW Foundation Reports
The legal team of People For the American Way Foundation, PFAW's affiliate foundation, publishes an end-of-term wrap-up at the close of every Supreme Court term and previews every new term with a report highlighting the issues that will arise in the coming year.
Here are PFAWF's most recent reports, which you can download in Acrobat PDF form. (Don't have Acrobat? Download it for free by clicking here.)
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2007-2008 Term
The Suprme Court's 2007-08 term was the third with Chief Justice John Roberts at the helm. Although not marked by as many 5-4 rulings as was the prior term of the Roberts Court, this past session left no doubt that the Court remains "sharply divided ideologically on some of the most fundamental constitutional questions."
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2006-2007 Term
The Supreme Court moved sharply to the right this past term, the first full term in which the Court's newest justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — served together on the bench. In fact, the 2006-07 term gave truth to the many predictions made when Roberts and Alito were nominated about the direction in which they would move the Court if confirmed, including weakening legal protections for Americans and limiting their ability to seek justice in the courts. In particular, this past term underscored the predictable impact that replacing moderate conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor by the ultraconservative Alito would have on the Court's jurisprudence. And, as reflected by the significant number of narrowly divided rulings this term, that impact has been accelerated by Justice Anthony Kennedy's replacement of Justice O'Connor as the Court's "swing" vote, as Justice Kennedy gave the new four-justice ultraconservative plurality a crucial majority vote in case after case.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2005-2006 Term
The Supreme Court moved sharply to the right this past term, the first full term in which the Court's newest justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — served together on the bench. In fact, the 2006-07 term gave truth to the many predictions made when Roberts and Alito were nominated about the direction in which they would move the Court if confirmed, including weakening legal protections for Americans and limiting their ability to seek justice in the courts. In particular, this past term underscored the predictable impact that replacing moderate conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor by the ultraconservative Alito would have on the Court's jurisprudence. And, as reflected by the significant number of narrowly divided rulings this term, that impact has been accelerated by Justice Anthony Kennedy's replacement of Justice O'Connor as the Court's "swing" vote, as Justice Kennedy gave the new four-justice ultraconservative plurality a crucial majority vote in case after case.
Courting Disaster 2005: Americans' Constitutional Freedoms and Legal Protections are Threatened by the Radical Right
This carefully researched report documents what it would mean to Americans if the coming vacancies on the Court are filled with people who share the radical right's dangerous approach to the law and the Constitution. The short answer is that a Court with more justices who share the radical legal philosophy of the far right's favorites — Scalia and Thomas — would reverse decades of legal and social justice accomplishments by turning back the clock on civil rights, privacy and reproductive choice, environmental protection, separation of church and state, worker and consumer rights, and more. Courting Disaster 2005 illuminates the judicial philosophy of Justices Scalia and Thomas by examining their dissenting and concurring opinions through April 15, 2005, updating a report originally produced in 2000. Over the past several years, Scalia and Thomas have continued to push the Court to the extremes, and to dissent angrily from important decisions that have upheld privacy, equal opportunity, and other hard-won civil rights.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2004-2005 Term
The Supreme Court decided a number of important cases concerning civil rights and civil liberties in its 2004-2005 term. Overall, the Court protected key civil rights and liberties, and disappointed those seeking to expand property rights and limit Congress' power — often by narrow margins — though some narrow decisions regarding access to justice and immigrant rights were disappointing. In fact, many of the key rulings, discussed in further detail below, were decided by narrow margins of 5-4 (or 5-3 due to the absence of Chief Justice Rehnquist), emphasizing the significance of future vacancies on the Supreme Court.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2003-2004 Term
The Supreme Court's 2003-04 Term saw a number of crucial decisions that protected key civil liberties and civil rights principles. Crossing some of the usual ideological lines on the Court, eight justices rejected the Bush administration's claim that it can indefinitely detain U.S. citizens incommunicado as "enemy combatants" without any due process rights. While many specific questions in this area remain for the future, this decision by the Court, coupled with the Court's ruling that detainees at Guantanamo may bring claims challenging their detentions in federal court, was a clear rebuke to the Administration's effort to prevent judicial review of the effects on civil liberties of its "war on terror" policies. Most of the Court's rulings protecting civil rights and civil liberties in 2003-04, however, were decided by narrow 5-4 or 6-3 margins.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Supreme Court's 2002-2003 Term
The Supreme Court's 2002-2003 Term underlined the importance of future nominations to the Court. The justices remain narrowly divided on a number of key issues concerning civil and constitutional rights, and came within one or two votes of adopting extreme positions advanced by Justices Thomas and Scalia in several important cases. These included the Court's 5-4 decisions upholding affirmative action and a key method used to finance legal aid for the poor, as well as 6-3 rulings upholding the Family and Medical Leave Act as applied to state employees and striking down Texas' anti-gay sodomy law.
Courting Disaster: An Update Examining the 2001-2002 Term
The Supreme Court's 2001-2002 Term was a troubling one for civil rights and civil liberties. In cases concerning school vouchers and church-state separation, the rights of disabled Americans, "federalism" and states' rights, and the privacy rights of students, the Court significantly restricted civil and constitutional rights and federal authority. The Court decided a number of these cases by narrow 5-4 rulings in which Justices Scalia and Thomas played a critical role in helping push the Court in a restrictive direction. In addition, the Court rejected by narrow margins a number of efforts by Scalia and Thomas to push the Court in an even more dangerous direction with respect to such issues as the ability of government to protect the environment, civil rights, and patients' rights.
Courting Disaster: Update: 2000-2001
At the close of its 2000-01 term, the Supreme Court remains narrowly divided on a number of issues that are extremely important to the rights of all Americans. Out of 87 decisions by the Court this term, more than 33% (30) were decided by 5-4 or 6-3 margins. Many of these narrow rulings concerned fundamental questions such as civil rights, privacy, federalism and "states' rights," religious liberty, freedom of expression, immigrants' rights and campaign finance. The Court's rulings this term reinforce the central conclusion reached by People For the American Way Foundation in its Courting Disaster report last year: the already very conservative Supreme Court is just one or two new justices away from curtailing or abolishing fundamental rights that millions of Americans take for granted.
Courting Disaster 2000: How a Scalia-Thomas Supreme Court Would Endanger our Rights and Freedoms
The United States Supreme Court is just one or two new Justices away from curtailing or abolishing fundamental rights that millions of Americans take for granted. A Court with two or three more right-wing Justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would reverse decades of Supreme Court precedents in civil rights, reproductive rights, privacy, separation of church and state, worker and consumer rights, environmental protection, campaign finance reform and more.This is not speculation, or scare tactics, or political rhetoric. It is the reality that is set forth in this report in clear and compelling detail. Courting Disaster is the result of a comprehensive six-month examination of the concurring and dissenting opinions of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court's two most far-right Justices.