The Modern U.S. Supreme Court

LAW 5766
Fall 2025

Outline & Readings

Note: This is hardly an inclusive list of the many studies on the modern Supreme Court. If you're interested in additional readings, please contact Prof. Epstein.

Introductory Material

1. Supreme Court's Procedures/Processes

2. The Justices of the Roberts Court

3. Especially Salient Decisions of the Roberts Court

4. Public Confidence in the Court

5. Researching the Court

Readings

• Lee Epstein, Kevin McGuire, & Thomas G. Walker, Constitutional Law for a Changing America: Rights, Liberties, and Justice. 12th ed. (Washington, D.C: CQ Press/Sage, 2025), pp. 11-22

• Adam Liptak & Abbie VanSickle, “Triumphant Supreme Court Term for Trump, Fueled by Emergency Rulings,” New York Times, June 28, 2025

• Adam Liptak, “How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment,” New York Times, June 30, 2018

• Adam Liptak, "Will Religion’s Remarkable Winning Streak at the Supreme Court Continue?," New York Times, March 30, 2025

• Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court’s Abortion Rulings May Set the Stage for More Restrictions,” New York Times, June 28, 2024

• Please watch this video (about 3 minutes): Adam Liptak, “How the Supreme Court’s Transgender Ruling Reveals a Shift,” New York Times, June 19, 2025

• Please watch this video (about 3 minutes): Adam Liptak, “How the Supreme Court Set the Stage for Redistricting," New York Times, August 10, 2025

• Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Rejects Affirmative Action Programs at Harvard and U.N.C.,” New York Times, June 29, 2023

• Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Imperils an Array of Federal Rules,” New York Times, July 1, 2024

• Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Says Trump Has Some Immunity in Election Case,” New York Times, July 1, 2024

• Abbie VanSickle & Adam Liptak, “Supreme Court Adopts Ethics Code After Reports of Undisclosed Gifts and Travel,” New York Times, November 13, 2023

• Adam Liptak, “Justice O’Connor’s Judicial Legacy Was Undermined by Court’s Rightward Shift,” New York Times, December 1, 2023

• Adam Liptak, “An ‘Imperial Supreme Court’ Asserts Its Power, Alarming Scholars,” New York Times, December 19, 2022

  Appointing Supreme Court Justices
  

  1. Vacancies

  2. Nomination

  3. Confirmation

  Readings

• Adam Liptak, “Rebuking Talk From Trump, Roberts Calls Impeaching Judges Over Rulings Improper,” March 18, 2025

• (optional) Please listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt propose expanding the size of the Court

• Elizabeth Dias & Adam Liptak, “To Conservatives, Barrett Has 'Perfect Combination' of Attributes for Supreme Court,” New York Times, September 20/October 26, 2020

• Adam Liptak, “Avoid, Sidestep, Retreat: Justices’ Advice on Confirmation Tactics,” New York Times, March 19, 2017

• Adam Liptak, “After Three Rounds, Judge Jackson Knows the Confirmation Playbook,” New York Times, March 21, 2022
  

Accessing the Court

1. The Emergency Docket

2. Cert Petitions

3. Processing Petitions

4. Clerks

5. Certworthy Petitions and the Roberts Court—>Lawyering

Readings

• Adam Liptak, “Kavanaugh Defends Supreme Court’s Terse Emergency Orders,” New York Times, July 31, 2025

• Adam Liptak, “A Sign of the Court’s Polarization: Choice of Clerks,” New York Times, September 6, 2010

• Adam Liptak, “The Road to a Supreme Court Clerkship Starts at Three Ivy League Colleges,” New York Times, February 6, 2023

• Abbie VanSickle & Steve Eder, “Clarence Thomas’s Clerks: An ‘Extended Family’ With Reach and Power,” New York Times, December 24, 2023

• Adam Liptak, “A ‘Citizen Lawyer’ Gets a Standing Ovation at the Supreme Court,” New York Times, April 30, 2025

• The Echo Chamber (A Small Group of Lawyers and Its Outsized Influence at the U.S. Supreme Court), Reuters, December 8, 2014. Please read the story and watch the video, “Familiar Voices”

Decision Making

1. Processing Cases

2. Making Decisions

Readings

• Adam Liptak, “Amid Cases on Abortion and Trump, Roberts Reflects on Supreme Court’s Work, “ New York Times, April 29, 2024

• Adam Liptak, “The Supreme Court’s Mixed Record on Adhering to Precedent,” New York Times, January 29, 2024

• (skim) Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, & Richard A. Posner, The Behavior of Federal Judges (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 101-116

• (optional, pp. 12-22) Lee Epstein, Urska Sadl, & Keren Weinshall, “The Role of Comparative Law in the Analysis of Judicial Behavior,“ 69 American Journal of Comparative Law 689 (2021)