Social and social scientific perspectives in judicial interpretations of the constitution: A historical view and an overview.

Abstract

It has been traditional to demarcate Muller v. Oregon as the first Supreme Court case to benefit from a social science perspective and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka as the first case to rely on social science evidence. This article explores the hypothesis that social perspectives have long been a part of the Court's decisionmaking when it has confronted difficult social issues. Two 19th-century race opinions, Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson, are used to support this position. The authors suggest that the social perspectives contained in the other articles in this special issue reflect a long-standing association between social science information and law. For social scientists, 1954 represented a high-water mark in the application of social science information to judicial proceedings. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka [Brown 1], the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the segregation of school children generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, p. 494). Segregated education, held the Court in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, is inherently unequal and, therefore, unconstitutional (p. 495). The separate but equal doctrine, which had been found to be constitutionally sufficient for transporting railway passengers by the Supreme Court in the infamous 1896 case, Plessy v. Ferguson, was held not to be adequate for children's educa