How the Burger Court of the 1970s Created the Judicial Right

(Front, L-R): John M. Harlan, Hugo L. Black, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan Jr. (Back, L-R): Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White, Harry Blackmun.

President Richard Nixon appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1969. While his court has often been viewed as moderate, Michael Graetz, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse in their book The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right, reveal how it actually defined the conservative interpretation of the Constitution upheld by right-leaning justices today.