At a time when the bad news feels endless, we should celebrate the gutsiness of a judiciary quietly standing up for democracy
Cast your mind back to the American south in the late 1950s, when federal trial court judges were called upon to do a herculean job – enforce the supreme court’s titanic decision in Brown v Board of Education, which struck down the “separate but equal” school segregation regime.
Bear with me for a brief history lesson, because it resonates today.
David Kirp is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and a frequent contributor to the Guardian