From Plessy to Chevron, a Timeline of Precedents the Court Was Right to Overrule

Every few years someone discovers that the Supreme Court is capable of changing its mind, and a nervous editorial follows. The Court has overruled a precedent, the editorial says, and the republic trembles. Settled law is unsettled. Stability is in danger. Hold your hats.

Then you read the list of precedents the Court has overruled, and the most admired decisions of the twentieth century turn out to be on it. The Court's best days have often been the days it admitted that an earlier Court got it wrong. So let us walk through the dates, in order, and ask what happened and why it mattered.

The test we are using

A timeline should have a rule, or it is just a list. Here is mine, and it comes from the way the Court itself reasons. Overruling is justified when three things are true: the earlier decision was wrong when decided, the rule has not worked or has done real harm, and the reliance interests do not outweigh the correction. That is the discipline in Stare Decisis Explained, and the Factors Justices Weigh Before Overruling, and every entry below is meant to pass it. I do not claim that every overruling in the Court's history was right. I claim that these were, and that "the Court overruled a precedent" is not an argument against any of them.

1940 to 1943: Gobitis to Barnette

In Minersville School District v. Gobitis (June 3, 1940), the Court upheld, 8 to 1, a school board's requirement that children salute the flag and recite the Pledge, even though the children in the case were Jehovah's Witnesses whose faith forbade it. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote that national unity justified the rule, and Justice Harlan Fiske Stone dissented alone.

Three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (June 14, 1943), the Court reversed itself, 6 to 3. Justice Robert Jackson wrote the opinion, in the middle of a world war, and said what may be the finest sentence in the history of the First Amendment: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

Why it mattered. Because it settled that the government may not compel anyone to say what he does not believe. That principle protects a Witness in 1943 and a conservative student today, and it is the root of every modern compelled-speech case.

1896 to 1954: Plessy to Brown

Plessy v. Ferguson (May 18, 1896) held, 7 to 1, that a Louisiana law requiring separate railway cars for white and Black passengers did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, so long as the accommodations were equal. Justice John Marshall Harlan's lone dissent said the Constitution is colour-blind, and that the decision would prove as pernicious as Dred Scott.

On May 17, 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka held, unanimously, that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, and that segregated public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the Court.

Why it mattered. Because the evil of Plessy was never its wording, it was its reach: it supplied constitutional cover to a system of law that treated citizens by race for fifty-eight years. Every honest person, conservative or otherwise, wishes the first decision had never been made. A rule of "never overrule" would have kept it.

1942 to 1963: Betts to Gideon

In Betts v. Brady (June 1, 1942), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not require States to appoint counsel for every poor defendant in a felony case. Whether a lawyer was necessary depended on the "special circumstances" of the case, such as the defendant's education or the complexity of the charge.

On March 18, 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright overruled it, unanimously. Clarence Earl Gideon, a Florida man charged with breaking into a pool hall, had defended himself, lost, and written to the Supreme Court by hand from prison. Justice Hugo Black, who had dissented in Betts twenty-one years earlier, wrote the opinion: the right to counsel in the Sixth Amendment applies to the States through the Fourteenth. On retrial with a lawyer, Gideon was acquitted.

Why it mattered. Because the Sixth Amendment promises "the Assistance of Counsel" and a promise that only wealthy defendants can use is not a promise. The special-circumstances rule was unworkable, which is the second reason the Court gives for overruling.

1977 to 2018: Abood to Janus

Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977) held that public-sector unions could require non-members to pay "agency fees" for the cost of collective bargaining, though not for political activity. The line between bargaining and politics was always blurry, and, in public employment, nearly everything a union asks for is a political choice, since the employer is the government and the bargaining is over public budgets.

On June 27, 2018, Janus v. AFSCME overruled it, 5 to 4. Justice Alito wrote that compelling a public employee to subsidize a union violates the First Amendment, because the employee is being forced to support speech with which he may disagree. Mark Janus, an Illinois child-support specialist, had challenged the fee.

Why it mattered. Because it applied the Barnette principle to money. A state may not force a citizen to pay for a position he rejects, and the argument for the fee, that non-members would otherwise get a free ride, is not enough to override a First Amendment interest.

1985 to 2019: Williamson County to Knick

Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank (1985) imposed a two-step rule on property owners who claimed a taking by a local government: first go to state court and seek compensation, and only then go to federal court. The catch, which a later case confirmed, was that once a state court decided the claim, the preclusion rules often barred the owner from the federal court altogether. The rule promised a federal forum and delivered a trap.

On June 21, 2019, Knick v. Township of Scott overruled it, 5 to 4, with Chief Justice Roberts writing. The property owner, Rose Mary Knick, had been told by her Pennsylvania township that she must open a family cemetery on her land to the public during the day. The Court held that a property owner may bring a federal takings claim as soon as the government takes the property, without first pursuing a state remedy.

Why it mattered. Because the Fifth Amendment is a right, not a favor. A person whose property is taken has a constitutional claim, and a rule that sends him through a procedural maze before a federal court will hear him treats that right as second-class.

1972 to 2020: Apodaca to Ramos

In Apodaca v. Oregon (1972), a fractured Court upheld state convictions by non-unanimous juries. Four Justices thought the Sixth Amendment did not require unanimity. Four thought it did. Justice Powell cast the deciding vote on a theory no one else accepted: unanimity for federal juries but not for state ones. The result stood on a rationale that commanded no majority.

On April 20, 2020, Ramos v. Louisiana overruled Apodaca, 6 to 3, with Justice Gorsuch writing. Evangelisto Ramos had been convicted of murder by a 10 to 2 jury in Louisiana. The Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires a unanimous verdict to convict of a serious offence, and that it applies in state court under the Fourteenth. Louisiana and Oregon were the only two States that still allowed non-unanimous verdicts.

Why it mattered. Because a conviction is among the gravest acts a government can take, and the Framers inherited a jury system in which twelve people had to agree. The history behind the Louisiana rule, discussed in Ramos v. Louisiana and the Jim Crow Roots of Split-Jury Convictions, added a moral reason to the textual one.

2022: Roe and Casey to Dobbs

On June 24, 2022, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), holding that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and returning the issue to the people and their elected representatives. The opinion walked through the factors, the nature of the error, the quality of the reasoning, workability, effect on other law and reliance, and found each against Roe.

Why it mattered. Because it restored a principle: a right that is not in the text and not deeply rooted in history is not for judges to invent. Scholars on both sides had criticized the reasoning of Roe from the moment it was issued, as the argument in Roe v. Wade Was Weak Law Even to Scholars Who Liked the Result shows, and the reading in Dobbs v. Jackson Read Closely, From Alito's History to the Joint Dissent lays out how the Court reached its result.

2024: Chevron to Loper Bright

In Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), the Court held that when a statute is ambiguous, courts should defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of it. In the decades after, that rule became a license for agencies to claim authority from silence. Notice the irony, told in Chevron Began as a Win for Reagan's EPA, Which Makes Its Fall So Ironic: the rule began as a victory for a Reagan-era EPA and grew into a general principle of surrender.

On June 28, 2024, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overruled Chevron. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that courts must exercise independent judgment about what the law means, as the Administrative Procedure Act directs, and may not defer to an agency merely because a statute is ambiguous. The Court added that earlier holdings that relied on Chevron remain subject to stare decisis.

Why it mattered. Because it restored the courts' ancient duty. In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall said it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. A rule that told judges to accept the executive's answer to a legal question took away the one job courts were given.

A pattern

Look at the list again, and some things stand out.

1. Most of the overruled decisions were bad on the day they were issued. Plessy was wrong in 1896, and Harlan said so. Betts was wrong in 1942, and Black said so. Gobitis was wrong in 1940, and Stone said so. Dissent came first and the correction later.
2. The overrulings protected individual liberty against concentrated power. A compelled flag salute, a compelled union fee, a trial without a lawyer, a conviction on 10 to 2, a taking with no federal remedy, an agency acting on its own say-so. In each, the Court sided with the person against the state.
3. None of them required a new constitution. Each applied the old one more faithfully.
4. They came from different directions. Brown and Gideon are celebrated by the left. Janus, Knick and Loper Bright are celebrated by the right. If the doctrine were a weapon of one party, this list would not exist.

The best objection

The best objection is that this list is cherry-picked. For every Brown there is a case in which the Court overruled a sound precedent for bad reasons, and the fact that some reversals were right does not show that this one, or that one, was.

True, and fair. The list does not prove that every overruling is right. It proves something narrower and more useful: that "the Court overruled a precedent" is not an objection. It is the beginning of a question. The question is whether the earlier decision was wrong, whether it has worked, and who relied on it. A critic who wants to argue that Dobbs or Loper Bright was wrongly decided is welcome to make the argument on the merits. He may not skip the merits by pointing to the date.

There is also a deeper answer. If precedent were permanent, the Court would have no way to correct errors except a constitutional amendment, and the Constitution has been amended only twenty-seven times. A government of law needs a way to fix its own mistakes without bloodshed. The overruling is that way.

What this means for a family

A family reading about these cases should see something simple. The decisions that mattered most to ordinary people, the right to a lawyer, the right to refuse to salute, the right to a unanimous jury, the right to be paid for property taken, are all rights that someone had to win by persuading a Court to reverse itself. The Court did not do it out of weakness. It did it because the Constitution said so, and a few people kept saying it until it listened.

So when you hear that overruling precedent is radical, ask a question: which of these would you like back?

More on the method behind these reversals is in Five Supreme Court Dissents That Later Became the Law of the Land, and on the founding rule that judges declare the law in Judicial Review Is in the Constitution's Logic, and Judicial Supremacy Is Not. For one that went the other way, see Dred Scott Is the Warning Every Fan of Judicial Supremacy Should Read and the story of the lone dissent in Justice Harlan's Lone Dissent in Plessy and the Colorblind Constitution. The Court's own list is in the Courts section.

The case in brief

1. The Court's best decisions, Barnette, Brown and Gideon among them, are overrulings.
2. Each reversal in this timeline passed the same test: the earlier decision was wrong, the rule had not worked, and reliance did not outweigh the correction.
3. The overrulings protected the individual against the state, in speech, trial rights, property and agency power.
4. The pattern cuts across parties, which shows that overruling is a method, not a partisan weapon.
5. The right answer to an overruling is a merits argument, not a complaint that the Court changed its mind.

What you can do: pick one of the eight reversals and read the overruling opinion's opening pages on the Supreme Court's website, then write down the single sentence that explains why the Court changed course.