Texas vs. Hopwood - Essay Example

The essay "Hopwood vs. Texas" talks about the judicial activism and judicial activism by the example of the case Hopwood v. Texas which remains one of the most intensively litigated cases featuring the long battle over affirmative action in higher education and a good example of judicial activism. Judicial activism entails that the Court majority employed personal or political principles that surpass the intended boundary delineated by the legislation. The rise of judicial activism has sometimes been labeled as an “end of democracy and the judicial usurpation of politics.

One of the drivers for the increased public concern has arisen from the tendency of the courts to utilize their power to decide cases as a mode of invalidating laws passed by legislatures, and even the people themselves via ballot initiatives, wherein judges in some circumstances enforce their own policy on a reluctant society. The Supreme Court plus other federal judicial bodies not only have surpassed their constitutional limits but have disputed the principle of federalism that ought to safeguard the balance of power between the national government and the governments of the states.

In some instances, the judges appear to surpass their power with regard to deciding cases that are before the court. Judges are expected to exercise judgment with regard to interpreting the law as per the Constitution. Judges should utilize their power to rectify injustices, especially in instances in which other branches of the government fail to act to do so.. Hence, courts have a critical role to play in shaping social policy on issues such as civil rights, safeguard of individual rights, public morality, and political injustice (Cox, 2012).

The core questions on judicial activism centers on whether courts should be awarded the power to annul legislation in the name of the constitution. Judicial activism could lead to some form of despotism (Vijayan, 2006). The courts claim that the power grounded in inferences obtained from the constitution’s credit as the supreme law, as well as from the nature of the judicial office. Discussion over judicial activism predictably comes back to issues regarding judicial supremacy: first, every section of the constitution’s letter and spirit is in principle deemed “enforceable” by the judiciary; second, every other public official, is bound by his oath to the constitution itself, to take the Supreme Court’s declarations on the Constitution as binding on himself.

Based on these teachings on judicial power the Supreme Court possesses an effective authority to alter the meaning of the constitution among its ordinary powers (Stephens & Scheb, 2008). As such, judicial supremacy has attained some measures of legitimacy by virtue of popular acquiescence to its terms. It is not the absence of constitutional authority that makes judicial activism a serious problem since courts are not designed to render wide public policy. Activist courts have undermined virtually every aspect of the public policy in the arena of: permitting racial inclinations and quotas; establishing a “right” to public welfare assistance; obstructing criminal prosecution; upsetting state referenda; and, discerning a right to