The New Right v. The Constitution

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Reagan administration will be the conservative judges it has placed on the Supreme Court and other federal courts. In this provocative essay, Harvard political scientist Stephen Macedo warns that the New Right's "Jurisprudence of Original Intent" seems to put untrammeled majoritarianism in place of constitutionally guaranteed liberties. Macedo accuses the New Right of "moral skepticism in the service of majoritarianism" and proposed instead a principled judicial activism that interprets the Constitution as a charter of liberties protecting individual freedom against a whole range of legislative and executive assaults. Macedo's defense of constitutional liberties sharply challenges constitutional theorists of both left and right.