Patrick Gilligan
4/16/2012
PoliSci 4090
I chose to read Gerald Rosenberg’s The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social
Change? for my paper. I was drawn to the title because the powers and limitations of the U.S.
courts have been the least defined of the three branches of government in my own classroom
experience. Indeed, the judicial branch was the part of the typical curriculum in the U.S.
government that I was least excited to teach, simply because I had so little to say about it.
Rosenberg’s work then proved to be an excellent choice as the very question the book seeks to
resolve will serve as an excellent subject of debate in a high school government class.
In his own words, Rosenberg’s intent in Hollow Hope is to examine “under what
conditions courts can produce political and social change, when it makes sense for individuals
and groups pressing for such change to litigate, and what those answers mean about the nature of
the American regime” (Rosenberg, 1991, Introduction, para. 7). Focusing on these main
questions as Rosenberg does enables teachers to transform a relatively mundane lesson plan
about what powers the Supreme Court does and does not have into a meaningful discussion
about what role the court can play in our everyday lives.
Almost immediately upon opening the book, I was struck by Rosenberg’s eloquent
cataloguing of the two competing views of the court’s competence to bring about significant
social reform. The author brands the two assessments the “Dynamic Court” and “Constrained
Court” views. The “Dynamic Court” believers see the courts as “powerful, vigorous, and potent
proponents of change”; while the “Constrained Court” crowd argues that the courts are prevented
from acting in such a manner by their lack of budgetary and physical powers (Rosenberg, 1991,
Introduction, para. 3). These two views are terrific material for teachers who want to move
beyond the contemporary “is judicial activism good or bad?” debate. Thanks to Rosenberg’s
material, I am prepared to offer my students a more nuanced analysis of the courts impact on
social reforms.
As a teacher, I might use Rosenberg’s two views as an opening for class. I think its key
that the discussion not center around which of the courts would make for a better country. As
Rosenberg puts it, “We Americans want courts to protect minorities, defend liberties and to defer
to elected officials” (Rosenberg, 1991, para. 7). Obviously, the two views of the courts can
easily come into conflict. Yet both views represent solid reasoning and say important things
about the nature of American democracy. In order to generate appreciation of this fact from the
students, I would ask them to first justify each interpretation and to reflect on how it impacts
their own relationship to the court.
In another of my classes, United States History for the Secondary Classroom, I was
introduced to the concept of teaching history through the use of student-centered, historical
investigations. The idea was to engage the student’s critical thinking skills by turning them into
“historical detectives”. First, they would be given a topic to investigates, such as: “Was
Abraham Lincoln racist?” They would then be given the material they needed to investigate the
topic, typically a combination of primary and secondary documents, and would be asked to work
together to reach a conclusion and justify it with evidence from those documents. Rosenberg’s
writings, which are in and of themselves a sort of investigation, would be well suited for this sort
of activity.
The class would be split into evenly divided groups (hopefully three or four to a group
depending on class size). Each group would be assigned to one of the four units that Rosenberg
presents in his book: Civil Rights, Abortion and Women’s Rights, The Environment,
Reapportionment and Criminal Law, and Same-Sex Marriage. They would be given edited
copies of the Supreme Court decisions that the book talks about in each unit (for example the
Roe and Doe decisions for Abortion and Women’s rights), along with edited transcripts from
Rosenberg’s chapters which provide some background information on the cases, the state of
public opinion on the subject, and the outcomes and impacts of the decisions. More information
would be needed for the students to complete a thorough investigation so the instructor should
feel free to add complimentary documents to assist the students. It would certainly be
worthwhile to provide analysis of the impact of the decision from another legal scholar that
challenges Rosenberg’s opinions, lest the investigations simply turn into regurgitations of the
book’s content. The students would be asked to analyze the documents to determine, in their
own opinions, whether or not the Supreme Court was the catalyst for the political or social
reforms their unit dealt with. They would also be asked to determine whether their findings
support either the “Dynamic” or “Constrained” Court views. Finally, they would be asked to
explain what their findings mean about the Court’s role in American democracy. The lesson
could quite possibly take longer than one class period. At the end of the investigations, the
students would present their findings to the class.
I would be excited to teach this lesson to my students and very interested in finding out
what they had to say about the matter. Rosenberg’s book has provided me with an opportunity to
encourage my student’s to critically assess the impact the U.S. courts have in their own lives.
Again what I remember about my high school government class was a detailed analysis of how
both the executive and legislative branches of the government operated and how they affected
the citizenry and then a footnote about how there’s also a judicial branch. Using Rosenberg’s
writings as a basis for one of my lesson plans will allow me to emphasize the importance of the
judiciary (even though his findings mostly minimize the impact the courts have on social
reform).
Works Cited
Gerald N. Rosenberg. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?
Second Edition (American Politics and Political Economy Series) Kindle Edition.