'Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair.' The Supreme Court's Most Famous and Infamous Decisions on Diversity

Abstract

Generally, few people recall or want to recall that the evils of race discrimination were reaffirmed through the law and the jurisprudence of state courts and the Supreme Court. In these decisions, law was not the implementation of justice, but of injustice. The infamous decisions of the Supreme Court can be compared to the words of the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when they announce that "Fair is foul and foul is fair". The wrong values were thus upheld by the law. In the twentieth century, in a swing of the pendulum, the Supreme Court has arguably become, with the civil rights movement, one of the most important players in American politics actively tackling race discrimination by overturning its infamous precedents. This paper takes a look at this evolution by examining three most infamous decisions of the Supreme Court and the judgments that have overturned them.

Keywords: constitutional law, supreme court, diversity, multiculturalism, minorities, jurisprudence, justice