I'm Lee Rowland.

From the ACLU, this is At Liberty, the podcast where we discuss today's most important civil rights and civil liberties issues.

Today, we're talking all things, Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has a vacant seat, and like all Supreme Court vacancies, the choice of who

fills it will have major consequences for the court, for the American public, for decades.

But does one justice really make that much of a difference to the defense of people's

constitutional rights? And what would a Justice Kavanaugh likely mean for our rights and

liberties? Here to discuss it is Erwin Chimerenski. He's the dean of Berkeley Law School,

and he's a leading legal scholar, professor, and Supreme Court litigator.

He's argued many times before the Supreme Court, and he's written books about it, including one

called the case against the Supreme Court. Irwin, thank you so much for being here.

It's truly my honor and pleasure to talk with you. You're a career civil rights lawyer and Supreme Court litigator,

so people might have been surprised to hear you've authored a book called The Case Against the Supreme Court.

Unpack that a little bit for us.

Do you believe the court has fulfilled its role in defending Americans' rights?

I believe that the Supreme Court has often failed, often at the most important times in

American history. I think if you look at the Supreme Court with regard to race, or the Supreme

Court during times of crisis, you see a court that didn't live up to the promise of the Constitution.

Let's talk about both of those.

How much of the court's history involves race?

De Tocqueville wrote early in American history that race is the central flaw upon which the American

democracy was built.

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