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The Broken-Hearted Lover: Erwin Chemerinsky's Romantic Longings For A Mythical Court, Gerald N. Rosenberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

Erwin Chemerinsky is broken hearted. "Almost forty years ago," he writes, "I decided to go to law school because I believed that law was the most powerful tool for social change and that the Supreme Court was the primary institution in society that existed to stop discrimination and to protect people's rights.' Smitten by the Court, Chemerinsky was blind to its historical role as a protector of privilege, and its structural limitations as an agent of progressive social change. Placing the Court on a pedestal, he abstracted it from the culture and the society in which it operates. For decades …