Customer Reviews

We Dissent: Talking Back to the Rehnquist Court, Eight Cases That Subverted Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

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Anti-american "professor" Ayers attacks the Rehnquist court, not on rational grounds, but on the author's complete lack of understanding of our constitution and its roots in western culture. From the sensational (and inaccurate) subtitle to the table of contents, a worthless attempt at academic discourse revealing nothing more than his own socialist predispositions. Unless you already subscribe to his bankrupt ideology or are coerced, perhaps as a student of his, to pay dearly for his predictably biased and unresearched "work" don't bother with his worthless books. This book only serves as a shining example of everything that's wrong with academia. But for that, we thank you.

The previous reviewers have mentioned how invaluable and accessible "We Dissent" will be for high school and college students interested in law and politics, and I certainly agree. I would add that this collection is also particularly interesting and compelling for law students, and practicing attorneys like myself. When I was in law school, rigorous and critical intellectual examination of the positions taken by jurists was often woefully--and surprisingly--lacking in many of my law school courses. Too often, the pressure put on professors and law students alike to review and digest massive amounts of legal material, with the goal of being able to memorize and recite legal holdings during a final examination, came at the expense of critical examination or questioning of the law being studied. When I was in high school, I had a history teacher who frequently supplemented textbook materials with excerpts of incisive analysis from both the left and the right. As a law student, I would have loved to have had "We Dissent" similarly assigned as material to complement the rulings we were reading in our textbooks. To all current law students, if your con law professor does not assign "We Dissent," I promise that it is well worth your time (other reading assignments be damned!) to read it yourself on the side. In addition, I think current practicing civil rights litigators will find that "We Dissent" is a thought-provoking and stirring call-to-arms for our continuing fight for justice. Definitely a recommended read.

This is an absolutely fascinating piece. A great portion of my research interests involve matters of civil rights and liberties, so I was quite thrilled to receive it.

The premise of the book and the central question posed to each of the book's contributors is novel: If you were a Supreme Court Justice on a case that defied our constitution and undermined our civil rights, how would your dissent read?

The authors of each chapter do not disappoint us. Each one addresses a specific Rehnquist Court decision that eroded the rights to which the Constitution entitles us. The arguments are forceful and clear: not a word too many, not a page too long, and not an ounce of jargon. While law and politics are central to my studies, I am not a lawyer and I did not attend law school. Still, the essays are unbelievably accessible, and they must be--these laws and decisions should be well understood and discussed by all of us who are governed by them.

The piece starts off with a thorough introduction that provides background about the Court, the cases, and a bit about the contributing authors. It is quick and to the point while still giving the reader a solid sense of what the purpose of the book is and how each case stands to affect our lives. Essentially, the introduction helps us to understand why these laws, debates, and ideas matter.

Then come the dissents. I won't go into each of them because my praise would grow long and saccharine, but the first chapter starts the book off with a bang. Written by constitutional law expert, author, lawyer, professor, and now Dean of UC Irvine School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky plunges the reader into a driving argument cutting straight to the premise of democracy: are we all equal? (Yes: in classic Chemerinsky style, he dissents from a 1999 decision for *three* main reasons). My heart raced as I closed in on his final paragraph, and I literally wanted to stand up and clap after I finished his last words: "I dissent." Over and over, I was overcome by the earnestness and passion of the authors in this volume, and while I frequently felt enraged about the decisions they addressed, I felt simultaneously heartened. I was holding in my hands the work of good people dedicating their lives to "doing justice."

Each chapter is a thrill, filled with philosophical insights, historical notes dating back to our Constitutional Convention, and most importantly, compelling reasons why decisions on the books must be overturned. These are decisions that replaced the principles of good government with expedience, and condone everything from racism to torture to unlawful search and seizure. I would recommend this as assigned reading in high school AP Government classes, and to college teachers of Law and Society courses; indeed, I plan to recommend the book to professors at my institution. The piece is already pretty affordable, but now that it is available on the Kindle, this one should be in the collection of everyone interested in learning more about what went wrong during the Rehnquist Reign--and how exactly to make things right going forward.

Five stars.


Míchel Angela Martinez
Ph.D. student, University of Southern California

As a former High School Civics teacher, former college professor and current law professor, I was struck by how readable and universal this book was. I would feel comfortable assigning the book or portions of the book to students of all ages. I would also recommend the book for anyone with even a passing interest in current events or our constitution. The introduction and the individual chapters are very accessible, even for someone without a legal background. I had my wife who is non lawyer and hates when I bring my work home, read one chapter, chapter four, to test my hypothesis. She was riveted and outraged. Then we engaged in a long, energized conversation about the issues over a glass of wine. The reason my wife and anyone would be interested and outraged is because the book exposes one of the most powerful institutions in the world, the United States Supreme Court under the "leadership" of Justice Rehnquist, for its often fraudulent perversion of the Constitution and of our civil liberties. You don't have to be a lawyer to know right from wrong. Reading any one of the chapters would also convert someone with a lack of legal sophistication into someone who could hang in a very "legal" conversation with authority.

Each chapter deals with a different topic and therefore can easily be read and digested on a "stand alone" basis or as a strand in a very compelling web. Each author explores a different topic where our core values, timeless social policy issues and constitutional doctrine intersect. For example, the book dissents from very disturbing Supreme Court decisions about racial profiling, racial discrimination and the line between torture and acceptable police tactics.

I found the book empowering on multiple levels: the authors offer inspirational models of how to eloquently rely on passion and logic to disagree with a power structure that systematically ignored fundamental human and civil rights.

After you read this book, if you care at all about our individual rights and liberties, you will not only be outraged, but energized to discuss the issues and perhaps even take action. For mature adults or high school students through graduate students, the book will spark meaningful and soul searching debate.