Justice Robert H. Jackson's unpublished opinion in Brown v. Board

David M. O'Brien

"Brown v. Board of Education is widely recognized as one of the US Supreme Court's most important decisions in the twentieth century. Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice on the case, is generally considered one of the Court's most gifted writers. Though much has been written about Brown, citing the writing and remarks of the justices who participated in the 1954 decision, comparatively little has been said about Jackson or his unpublished opinion, which is sometimes even mistakenly taken as a dissenting opinion. This book visits Brown v. Board of Education from Jackson's perspective and, in doing so, offers a reinterpretation of the justice's thinking, and of the Supreme Court's decision making, in a ruling that continues to reverberate through the nation's politics and public life. Weaving together judicial biography, legal history, and judicial politics, [this book] provides a...