The Court changes its mind. So do the people.

Precedent is meant to hold, and usually does. These are the decisions in the collection that a later Court overruled, that an amendment answered, or whose reasoning a later Court expressly rejected.

7overruled by a later decision

5answered by an amendment

2reasoning later rejected

32years, on average, before an overruling

Overruled. By the Court itself.

163 U.S. 537 (1896) · 7–1Plessy v. FergusonNo. Separate accommodations that were equal did not violate equal protection. Justice Harlan dissented: “Our Constitution is color-blind.”347 U.S. 483 (1954) · 9–0Brown v. Board of EducationYes. “In the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”

247 U.S. 251 (1918) · 5–4Hammer v. DagenhartNo. Manufacturing was not commerce, and the law reached into matters reserved to the states.312 U.S. 100 (1941) · 9–0United States v. DarbyYes. The Fair Labor Standards Act was a valid use of the commerce power.

274 U.S. 357 (1927) · 9–0Whitney v. CaliforniaYes. Justice Brandeis, concurring, wrote that the remedy for feared speech is “more speech, not enforced silence.”395 U.S. 444 (1969) · 8–0Brandenburg v. OhioNo. Advocacy of force may be punished only when directed to inciting imminent lawless action and likely to produce it.

310 U.S. 586 (1940) · 8–1Minersville School District v. GobitisYes. National unity was a sufficient interest to require the salute.319 U.S. 624 (1943) · 6–3West Virginia State Board of Education v. BarnetteNo. “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official … can prescribe what shall be orthodox.”

410 U.S. 113 (1973) · 7–2Roe v. WadeYes. The right of privacy under the Due Process Clause covers the decision, subject to state interests that grow over the pregnancy.597 U.S. 215 (2022) · 6–3Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationNo. Roe and Casey were overruled, returning the regulation of abortion to the people and their elected representatives.

478 U.S. 186 (1986) · 5–4Bowers v. HardwickNo. The Court upheld Georgia’s sodomy law as applied.539 U.S. 558 (2003) · 6–3Lawrence v. TexasNo. The law violated liberty protected by the Due Process Clause.

505 U.S. 833 (1992) · 5–4Planned Parenthood v. CaseyNo. The Court kept Roe’s central holding but replaced its framework with an “undue burden” standard.597 U.S. 215 (2022) · 6–3Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationNo. Roe and Casey were overruled, returning the regulation of abortion to the people and their elected representatives.

Answered by amendment. By the people and the states.

2 U.S. 419 (1793) · 4–1Chisholm v. GeorgiaYes. Federal judicial power extended to suits brought against a state by a citizen of another state.Ratified 1795The Eleventh AmendmentFederal judicial power does not extend to suits against a state by citizens of another state or of a foreign country.

60 U.S. 393 (1857) · 7–2Dred Scott v. SandfordNo. The Court held that such persons were not citizens under the Constitution and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, striking down the Missouri Compromise line.Ratified 1868The Fourteenth AmendmentEveryone born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen; no state may deny any person life, liberty or property without due process of law, or the equal protection of the laws.

88 U.S. 162 (1875) · 9–0Minor v. HappersettNo. Citizenship did not carry the right to vote, and states could limit suffrage to men.Ratified 1920The Nineteenth AmendmentThe right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.

158 U.S. 601 (1895) · 5–4Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.Yes, as to taxes on income from property, and the tax was struck down as a whole.Ratified 1913The Sixteenth AmendmentCongress may tax incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the states.

400 U.S. 112 (1970) · 5–4Oregon v. MitchellNo, though it could for federal elections. The split result led directly to the Twenty-sixth Amendment.Ratified 1971The Twenty-sixth AmendmentThe right of citizens eighteen years of age or older to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of age.

Reasoning rejected. Without a formal overruling.

198 U.S. 45 (1905) · Liberty and privacyLochner v. New YorkNo. The limit interfered with liberty of contract protected by the Due Process Clause.300 U.S. 379 (1937)West Coast Hotel Co. v. ParrishYes. Liberty of contract is subject to reasonable regulation in the public interest, and an earlier contrary decision was overruled.

323 U.S. 214 (1944) · War and national securityKorematsu v. United StatesYes. The Court upheld the exclusion order. In Trump v. Hawaii (2018) the Court wrote that Korematsu “was gravely wrong the day it was decided.”585 U.S. 667 (2018)Trump v. HawaiiYes. The proclamation was within the President’s statutory authority and survived constitutional review. The opinion also stated that Korematsu was wrongly decided.

This collection is selective. Researchers count well over two hundred decisions the Court has overruled in whole or in part; see the Constitution Annotated’s table of overruled decisions, linked from Sources.

Read the record for yourself. Draw your own conclusions.

Every decision, amendment and event links to its source. Nothing here asks you to agree with anything.

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