Text of U.S. Supreme Court Decision: Rachel Agostini, et al., Petitioners, Chancellor, Board of Education of the City of New York, et al., Petitioners v. Betty-Louise Felton et al.: Argued April 15, 1997 - Decided June 23, 1997

1998 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-262
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
The City

“Some Choice of Means”

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
David S. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Governmental Intervention ◽  
Federal Laws

Progressive-era constitutionalists who believed that problems of industrialization required increasing governmental intervention in economic life debated the meaning of McCulloch v. Maryland against conservatives who claimed that such interventions violated a supposedly constitutional principle of laissez faire. Progressives’ pro-imperialism views morphed into advocacy of domestic social reform as thinkers like James Bradley Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and Albert Beveridge interpreted McCulloch to maintain that the Constitution was sufficiently expansive and adaptable to accommodate both imperialism and reform. Meanwhile, the conservative judicial activism of this period, known as the Lochner era from the Supreme Court decision in Lochner v. New York (1905), led the Supreme Court to invalidate key federal laws, like the 1916 Child Labor Act, which was struck down in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). Notwithstanding McCulloch, the Court denied Congress the power to regulate labor and productive activities, even when necessary and proper to regulating interstate commerce.

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