The court system is better at protecting individual rights than the elected branches of government because judges do not need to win votes or stay popular. Their job is to follow the Constitution, not public opinion. That gives them more freedom to protect people, especially those in the minority. For example, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Many elected officials at the time were too afraid to go against public opinion, especially in the South. But the Court made a decision based on justice and equal rights, even though it was unpopular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal judges are not elected like the president or members of Congress. Instead, they are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Since they are not chosen by the public, some people say the Supreme Court is anti-democratic. I agree to an extent because regular people do not get a direct say in who becomes a judge, and once someone is appointed, they serve for life. That gives them a lot of power without being held accountable through voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the reason it was designed this way goes back to Federalist Number 10. James Madison and the other framers of the Constitution were afraid of majority rule turning into mob rule. They did not want the majority to be able to take away the rights of the minority, especially the wealthy class they were part of. So, they made the court system more independent from voters. Judges were meant to act as a balance to protect the Constitution, even when it goes against public opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is that this system also gives a lot of power to the people already in control. Judges are chosen by presidents and confirmed by senators, who are often influenced by big donors and wealthy groups. So even though the courts can protect individual rights, they are still shaped by the interests of the upper class. That is why the courts can seem fair at times, but also disconnected from what most people want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The court system is better at protecting individual rights than the elected branches of government because judges do not need to win votes or stay popular. Their job is to follow the Constitution, not public opinion. That gives them more freedom to protect people, especially those in the minority. For example, in Brown v. Board…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10707,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-board-11-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6871,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870\/revisions\/6871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.bmcc.cuny.edu\/pol-100-a050-american-government-summer-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}