Last month, Sweet Briar College professor of government Barbara A. Perry spent two weeks in Washington, D.C., immersed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s final Opinion Days of the 2006-07 term. She attended three out of the last four sessions in which the justices announced closely decided rulings on some of the nation’s most contentious political issues.

Perry's book is due out this month.Of particular interest to Perry, a Supreme Court scholar, was the impending decision in Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. Both cases challenge policies that use race as a factor in assigning kindergarten through 12th-grade students to public schools.

The cases were decided June 28 in a 5-4 ruling against the use of race-based school assignments in two public school districts.

Perry is the author of a book due out this month, “The Michigan Affirmative Action Cases,” which examines two previous decisions in which the Court considered race and education. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s vote tipped the balance in the 2003 Michigan ruling, which upheld affirmative action in the interest of achieving diversity in higher education.

Without O’Connor, last week’s vote went the other way, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion. Perry observed that this is the second term with President Bush’s two appointments serving on the high court and the “mark that they are making on the legal landscape is profound.”

Conservatives who have long wanted change on the court, especially on the issues of abortion and affirmative action, are beginning to reap what Bush sowed with his appointments, particularly that of Justice Samuel Alito, Perry said.

“They finally got to replace their bugaboo, and that was Justice O’Connor.”

The more moderate O’Connor, who retired in 2006, was frequently the difference in controversial decisions that split the court along ideological lines.

“She often enshrined her centrist positions in the law of the land when she produced majority opinions with the court’s liberal quartet – Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer,” Perry said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy is playing the pivotal role of “swing justice” now. He was on the winning side in 24 out of 24 cases decided with five votes. Thirteen had conservative outcomes, including Kennedy’s majority opinion in a case involving partial-birth abortion.

However, Perry says, Justice Kennedy may find himself writing concurrences that lack the force of majority rulings. “Substituting Alito for O’Connor means that Kennedy must contend with a forceful alliance of four conservatives led by Chief Justice Roberts.”

But, she noted, by his concurring opinion in the school race case, Kennedy was a moderating influence on the majority decision, which “narrowed its ramifications for the Michigan case. It keeps intact the Grutter ruling – at least for now.”

Perry spoke from her home in Louisville, Ky., where Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools originated. She followed the furor in the local news in the wake of the decision with some bemusement.

Despite the ruling against the local district’s school assignment plan, a representative from the school board went on television to assure worried parents that their children will attend the schools they’ve already been assigned, in apparent defiance of the decision.

This seasoned observer of the highest judicial body in the land, and a former Supreme Court fellow, is still amazed at the power it wields.

“That five out of nine unelected justices in the ‘marble palace,’ as the majestic court building is sometimes called, can reach right down to parents in Louisville, Kentucky, and tell them, in effect, where their children can or can’t attend school, constitutes a tremendous assertion of authority.”

Perry is serving a one-year fellowship at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center. She may be reached through the Sweet Briar Office of College Relations at (434) 381-6330 or (434) 381-6262 or by e-mailing Jennifer McManamay.