Tearing down the house that Thurgood built

Tearing down the house that Thurgood built
Before Thurgood Marshall joined the Supreme Court, he secured many of the rights his successors are dismantling

By Melanie McFarland
Senior Critic
Published September 10, 2025 10:30AM (EDT)




(Salon) Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recent media appearances have proven illuminating, perhaps not in the way she means them to. Barrett’s conversations with the usual outlets served the general purpose of a book tour; in promoting her memoir “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution,” which was released this week, she repeated her intent to explain the workings of the American judicial system to the public.

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In the court of pop culture influence, Barrett isn’t close to matching the cult of personality surrounding her predecessor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But if you’re worried by the many alarms warning that our democracy is circling the drain, she’s here to soothe your nerves.

“I think the Constitution is alive and well. I think the country remains committed to the rule of law. I think we have functioning courts,” she told Weiss’ audience.

Watching “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect” may not support that perspective. This evenly paced hour covers Thurgood Marshall’s extensive work as a civil attorney and the head of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or LDF. In 1967, Marshall became the Supreme Court’s first Black justice. However, what he accomplished before rising to that position made him more famous.

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But the film also left me pessimistic about where we’re headed. Marshall was a once-in-a-century jurist whose hard-earned, wide-reaching work is steadily being dismantled by a court stacked with judges farther to the right of Barrett. Presenting her as the face of reasonability makes sense. “We’re a passive institution in that regard,” she tells O’Donnell, explaining that the court doesn’t pick cases. “And the cases that people litigate . . . they only bother to litigate the things that they’re really, truly disagreeing about that they feel passionately about. And then those are the cases that we see.” ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/10/tearing-down-the-house-that-thurgood-built/