Reading Notes--mostly précis and summary!
Adam Kissel

Judge Hand had argued for that the Supreme Court may, but does not have to, judge the constitutionality of laws, but Wechsler sees this task as a compelling responsibility of the Court. In certain cases, though, the Court may decide that "the Constitution has committed the determination of the issue to another agency of government than the courts" (9).

By what standards should we judge the reasonableness of the Court's decisions? Of course the standard must go beyond the politics of a case at hand. Principles "are largely instrumental" in politics, even the other branches of the government, but neutral principles ought to be foundational for the Court. (Precedent and history are secondary, as the Court can make mistakes.) Interpreting the Constitution is difficult, and the Court ought to discern the principles behind the words. In judging the Court we must examine its reasoning from and about these principles.

In school desegregation, for example, the judgment seems not to have been made upon the facts about, for instance, the way students feel in a segregated environment, but upon the principle that segregation denies "equality to the minority against whom it is directed" (33). Here the principle seems to be based on the freedom of association winning out over the freedom from association, which Wechsler intuits to be correct, though he does not see that it has been adequately explained.