ABSTRACT
While Americans are deeply fascinated by and attracted to a practice that does serious political and cultural damage, they are also uneasy about it. Judicial confirmation hearings, although sometimes derided as ritualized and insincere, do convey this sense of unease and also the types of reassurances provided by the nominees. In 1957 Brennan did not attempt to explain the difference between changes created by interpretation and those that can be accomplished only through amendment. Today the suspicion that the power of judicial review is used to amend the Constitution is difficult to keep submerged. For one thing, in the modern era the Court has frequently announced major new departures. Besides the right to racially desegregated schools, which did not emerge until 1954, consider that school prayer was not declared to be unconstitutional until 1962. Listing specific innovations does not capture the significance and scale of the changes introduced by the Supreme Court.
