Thanks to everyone for the interesting (if abbreviated) discussion of Problem 3 last night. At some level, the problem raises the question of what it means to live in a constitutional democracy, or at least our constitutional democracy. If the Supreme Court's decisions are indeed the final word, not just in the case before it, but as to the meaning of the Constitution, perhaps we are no longer a government "of the people, by the people," but instead have given that responsibility over to the Court. The Court's opinions become no different than the Constitution itself. At the same time, it is not easy to square the idea of independent powers of constitutional interpretation with the rule of law. The behavior of school districts in the South following Brown v. Board of Education was hardly a sterling example of how a democracy should function. It was obstructionist in the worst sense. The Court held in May 1954 that segregation in public education was inherently unequal, yet by 1965, a whopping 1 percent (!) of African American children in the Deep South were attending desegregated public schools.
So, how should we resolve these questions? Where should we strike the balance? What does living under our Constitution mean to you?