The Supreme Court increasingly says it is relying on history to resolve some of the most important constitutional questions of our time. But the Court’s relatively new “originalist” method improperly limits Americans’ rights to the outmoded values of 18th-century America. And the history the Court offers is often flat-out wrong.
The Brennan Center is collaborating with historians to change the national legal conversation on history and the Constitution, by critiquing the Court’s uses and abuses of history, exposing the flawed thinking at the core of the toxic brand of originalism that the Court is promoting, and pioneering new ways of using history to protect our constitutional rights.
