Felix Frankfurter: A Life

Felix Frankfurter, vilified by conservatives for being too liberal when he was a law school professor and an advisor to President Roosevelt and vilified by liberals for being too conservative when he was on the Supreme Court (1929-1962), is the subject of a new biography: Democratic Justice. The thesis of the book is that Frankfurter's views on the role of the Supreme Court in the American system of government was consistent throughout his life, consistently democratic. This SDG will examine those views, how they were formed and how they were tested by studying Frankfurter's opinions dealing with the hot button issues of the day (which continue to be hot button issues today, e. g., Brown v. Board of Education and Involved Citizens v. Seattle). But Frankfurter's life is worthy of study not just for his judicial role; he took on the Boston and Harvard establishment in bringing to light the procedural flaws in the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti and the attempt to set a quota for Jewish students at Harvard, he served as the HR Department for the New Deal as well as advising Roosevelt on a range of issues, including matters of war and peace, and as Justice Brandeis's surrogate he became one of the leading Zionists in the United States.