0:00

Hello, listeners of the experiment.

0:03

It's Julia, and I have missed you.

0:06

But I want to reach out to make sure you know about a

0:08

show that's launching soon. More

0:10

Perfect, the show from WNYC

0:12

Studios, all about the Supreme

0:14

Court, is relaunching this

0:17

week. And I'll be hosting. At

0:19

More Perfect, we bring the highest court in

0:21

the land down to earth. We

0:24

meet people on all sides of critical

0:26

cases and give you context for

0:28

recent decisions

0:29

to try and explain how we got

0:31

here. You can hear all our stories

0:33

by subscribing to More Perfect wherever

0:36

you get podcasts. We would love

0:38

to hear what

0:38

you think of the show. And now, take

0:41

a listen to our trailer. And don't be shy.

0:43

Come on over to the More Perfect feed.

0:50

Listener supported. WNYC

0:52

Studios. This

0:58

is More Perfect.

1:02

The Supreme Court holds a special

1:04

place in the American imagination. For

1:07

a lot of us, it starts in

1:15

high school. I

1:22

visited East High in Denver,

1:24

Colorado.

1:25

To hang

1:27

out with their Constitution team. These

1:33

kids have named their pocket constitutions.

1:40

The team competes in the national We

1:42

the People competition, where

1:44

they're asked to argue about the Supreme

1:47

Court in legalese. It's

1:53

like the nerd Super Bowl.

1:56

In

2:01

the 1803 case of Marv R. V. Madison,

2:03

the Supreme Court proclaimed it is emphatically the

2:05

right thing to do. I know this

2:06

because I too was this

2:08

cool in high school. So

2:10

the Supreme Law of land, they are not higher law.

2:14

Okay, great.

2:17

My Constitution team from an all-girls

2:20

Catholic school in Miami, Florida, we

2:23

were good. We made it all the way

2:25

to nationals. And just like the Supreme

2:28

Court, we had our minds focused

2:31

on the 4,543 words of our pocket

2:33

constitutions.

2:39

What is joy for the high school nerd, if

2:41

not something to memorize? An

2:44

ideal of justice to

2:46

fall in love with. Hello?

2:50

Hello. Hello?

2:56

Hello, Mrs. Heffernan. My

2:58

very first tour guide to the Supreme

3:01

Court was my high school government teacher,

3:03

Mrs. Heffernan. The Supreme

3:05

Court has always been my hero. She's

3:08

a bit of a fan. I was like

3:10

a cheerleader

3:10

for the court. It

3:13

protected you from discrimination.

3:16

In the Supreme Court, according to Ms. Heffernan,

3:19

if you have a problem that democracy

3:21

can't solve,

3:22

you can appeal to the court to

3:24

swoop in and serve justice.

3:27

The Supreme Court always represented

3:29

the little guy. At

3:31

least, that was the hope. For

3:35

me, the romance was about what

3:37

happened in the courtroom. Growing

3:40

up in a pretty conservative bubble and

3:42

going to college in a liberal bubble,

3:46

the Supreme Court really did seem like it

3:48

could be a place above politics

3:51

where you could actually listen to

3:53

two sides of an issue truly

3:56

discussed and debated,

3:58

deeply and earnestly. Honestly, that

4:02

felt really hopeful. It

4:04

was always the court who ignored

4:07

the majority and said, OK,

4:09

you know, we're not elected. We're just going to

4:12

interpret it based on the Constitution.

4:14

But I think

4:16

that, you know, that

4:19

has changed. The

4:23

Supreme Court has been pulling crazy bullsh**

4:26

forever. One 11th grader

4:28

I talked to had no such romance.

4:31

And people like to say that it's so much

4:33

worse now. But if you sit and, like,

4:35

maybe try and think, then you recognize

4:37

that, oh, my gosh, they have been cycling

4:39

out crazy opinion after opinion since

4:42

f**king forever. Today,

4:46

it's hard for the Supreme Court to maintain

4:48

the air of grandeur and mystery

4:50

they might have had in the past. There's

4:53

a bunch of things kids could point to. My

4:55

favorite is that one time, early

4:57

in the global pandemic, when the Supreme

5:00

Court tried working from home. The

5:02

FCC has said is that when the subject

5:04

matter of the fall ranges to the topic,

5:07

then the call is transformed. Someone,

5:10

maybe

5:10

a justice, forgot

5:12

to press mute while flushing

5:14

the toilet during a live-streamed

5:16

oral argument. Like,

5:19

they're people, too. And of course, they can be

5:21

swayed by different things. And

5:23

then somebody leaked a

5:25

draft of one of the most polarizing

5:28

opinions

5:28

in recent history. It is

5:31

a new question. A question

5:33

is a question. I think the media coverage on

5:36

Roe v. Wade made me pay more

5:38

attention to the courts and their decisions on

5:40

a bunch of different cases. Take a look for

5:42

a moment at this 8-foot security

5:44

fence and gone up all around the court. Same

5:46

kind of fencing put up around the Capitol after

5:49

January 6th. It's a sign of

5:51

how deep and sharp the

5:53

divisions in this country are that have been

5:55

deep. While we grown-ups are compelled to

5:57

make up our minds about the Supreme

5:59

Court, in this moment. They're

6:01

either restoring justice or destroying

6:04

America. High schoolers,

6:07

these rough drafts of human

6:09

beings, are still just

6:11

trying to figure out what they believe. What

6:14

do you think of the Supreme

6:16

Court? I think there's

6:18

definitely flaws. I do

6:21

not think that people that are

6:23

not elected by citizens

6:25

should make decisions

6:27

for citizens. Oh,

6:30

but if they're elected, then that would make them

6:32

pretty political. So I just

6:35

realized that. Yeah. Today

6:37

it seems strange to me that like these nine people

6:40

go up and decide what

6:42

is and what isn't not just constitutional

6:45

but like right and just.

6:51

So this season of More Perfect, we're

6:53

taking a cue from the high schoolers and

6:56

we're questioning everything. The

7:01

honor of all the Chief Justice and the

7:04

Associate Justices of the Supreme Court

7:06

of the United States. Oh,

7:10

yeah, oh, yeah, oh,

7:12

yeah.

7:13

What is the Supreme Court for? Who

7:15

is it for? Is it a place

7:18

above politics where you can get a fair

7:20

hearing? The number one thing for me

7:22

was just how warm and

7:24

respectful the people were, whether

7:26

they agreed with you or didn't. Or

7:29

is it an anti-democratic

7:31

branch of government that needs

7:33

to be tamed? Will this

7:35

institution survive

7:37

the stench that this creates

7:40

in the public

7:41

perception? We're

7:45

going to try to make sense of this current moment

7:47

on the Supreme Court and ask, what

7:50

is justice in America? Who

7:53

gets to decide? And should it

7:55

be this way? From WNYC

7:58

Studios, this is more.

7:59

season four.