Courts, students are told, will protect minorities’ legal rights against popular sentiment and political pressure. But courts can be expected to protect rights only within boundaries shaped in part by popular and political opinion. This suggests that litigation outcomes regarding education rights issues will depend on shifting the policymaking context through broad societal changes in perspective about the importance of equitable schooling. This dynamic of courts carrying out their limited countermajoritarian role within contextual constraints has substantial implications concerning the largely unrealized capacity of social science to affect judicial decision making. Accordingly, this article explores that dynamic and those implications, building on existing concepts from political science scholarship and introducing the concept of a zone of judicial constraints.
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