Developments in Constitutional Law: The 1994-95 Term

This essay explores the apparent triumph of the individual of classical liberalism in Supreme Court decision making. Our analysis examines the particular way in which this political imagery of the individual interacts with judicial assumptions about important social institutions: the family, religion, media, and the state. What is revealed is the judicial adoption of an intricate social and political map in which abstract individualism combines with, and often masks, traditional, conservative images of social order and moral choice.