Series
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.
Episode Number
S0404
Episode
How Active A Supreme Court?
Producing Organization
Southern Educational Communications Association
South Carolina Educational Television Network
Contributing Organization
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University (Stanford, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/514-0z70v8b657
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/514-0z70v8b657).
Description
Episode Description
In the wake of Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren, a clarifying discussion of the Supreme Court, what it should be doing, and what it has been doing. Mr. Ennis takes the activist view; Mr. Bork holds that "this Court and the Warren Court, and indeed prior Courts, have made up the Constitution in large part." ... BE: "The abortion cases are certainly examples of judicial activism. The question is whether it is impermissible judicial activism ... In the abortion cases ... it is harder to see that than in some other area, for two reasons. One reason is that it involves women, who are not a discrete and insular minority totally excluded from the political process... and the other is that the constitutional principle the Supreme Court was relying on ... was the principle of privacy,. . . [which] is not expressly stated in the Constitution ... I happen to agree with those decisions, but I do think they are activist decisions and are more difficult to justify than, for example, Brown v. the Board of Education." Currently there is only a digitized transcript available for this episode.
Series Description
The television series Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. was a venue for debate and discussion on political, social, and philosophical issues with experts of the day. Firing Line broadcasts from 1966 through March 1971 were produced and syndicated by WOR-TV, a commercial station in New York, but some of them were also broadcast on noncommercial television stations. Starting in April 1971, Firing Line broadcasts were produced by the Southern Educational Communications Association, an arm of South Carolina Educational Television. Hoover Institution Library & Archives' Firing Line collection guide can be found at: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/firing-line.
Date
1980-01-03
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
United States; judicial process; United States. Supreme Court; decision making; Law and Politics
Rights
Copyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.
Media type
Moving Image
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Guest: Bork, Robert H.
Guest: Ennis, Bruce J.
Host: Buckley, William F., Jr.
Producing Organization: Southern Educational Communications Association
Producing Organization: South Carolina Educational Television Network
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Stanford University
Identifier: 80040.643 (Hoover Institution)
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 1:00:00
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0404; How Active A Supreme Court?,” 1980-01-03, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 6, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0z70v8b657.
MLA: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0404; How Active A Supreme Court?.” 1980-01-03. Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 6, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0z70v8b657>.
APA: Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0404; How Active A Supreme Court?. Boston, MA: Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-0z70v8b657