ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law
Abstract
During his thirty-four year tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice William Joseph Brennan, Jr. demonstrated unparalleled sensitivity to the protection of individual rights. Justice Brennan\u27s landmark opinions included Baker v. Carr, Goldberg v. Kelly, and New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. before Brennan, Supreme Court jurisprudence exalted judicial passivity by employing techniques for avoiding constitutional issues, such as abstention, comity, exhaustion of remedies and the political question doctrine.
Against this background, Brennan became an active judicial voice in a series of innovative landmark cases, including decisions requiring federal officials to pay damages for violation of citizens\u27 constitutional rights; authorizing federal courts to issue injunctions forbidding state court prosecutions under laws violating the First Amendment; and permitting congressional employees to sue members of Congress for discriminatory treatment.
However, less attention has been focused on Justice Brennan\u27s dramatic impact on the Supreme Court\u27s gender jurisprudence. More than any other member of the Court, Justice Brennan recognized the complexity and pervasiveness of sex discrimination and its costs to society as a whole. Brennan\u27s opinions recognized that sex differentiation is largely cultural in origin, rather than based on real gender differences. As a result, Justice Brennan created a truly independent gender jurisprudence, eventually emerging as the architect of the Supreme Court\u27s contemporary test for evaluating claims of sex-based discrimination
