Abstract
The degree to which legal doctrine constrains judicial decisionmaking is one of the enduring questions in the study of judicial behavior. Scholars and the public alike have long debated whether and to what extent judges’ personal political ideologies affect their legal decisions. The most influential existing theories have explained judicial holdings as a function of judges’ ideological predispositions.1 But in conceptualizing holdings as the relevant dependent variable, these theories suffer from one central flaw: they assume that legal tests are ideologically neutral filters through which judges’ policy preferences pass. This assumption obscures the ideological work being done in the creation of particular legal tests in the first instance.
Recommended Citation
Bagshaw, Timothy M.
(2013)
"The Phantom Standard: Compelling State Interest Analysis and Political Ideology in the Affirmative Action Context,"
Utah Law Review: Vol. 2013:
No.
1, Article 15.
Available at:
https://dc.law.utah.edu/ulr/vol2013/iss1/15