For decades conservatives have strenuously disagreed with Supreme Court rulings on abortion, affirmative action, aid to religious schools, rights of the accused, capital punishment, and much more. Today many liberals are so distressed with the Court’s decisions on abortion, affirmative action, and executive power that they have supported efforts to “pack” the Court by increasing the number of Justices. How should we think about these disputes? Is a Court that overturns precedent “not normal,” as President Biden suggested? Or does this happen all the time? How should those who disagree with Court decisions respond?

R. Shep Melnick is the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Professor of American Politics at Boston College and co-chair of the Harvard Program on Constitutional Government. He is author of Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act (Brookings, 1984), Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights (Brookings, 1994), The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education (Brookings, 2018), and most recently The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Equal Educational Opportunity (University of Chicago Press,2023. He has served as president of the New England Political Science Association and an elected member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. He received both his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard.