Earl Warren Finally Confirmed as Chief Justice
Because former Chief Justice Fred Vinson died suddenly in the fall of 1953, Earl Warren was given an interim appointment as Chief Justice on October 2, 1953. The Senate did not confirm him, however, until this day.
Two-and-a-half months later, on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote the Court’s unanimous opinion in the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. Most scholars credit Warren with being responsible for persuading the other Justices of the importance of a unanimous 9–0 decision.
Warren went on to become one of the great chief justices in the history of the Court. His name (the “Warren Court”) is synonymous with the great advances in civil liberties in the late 1950s and 1960s. Court experts generally believe that Justice William Brennan was the intellectual leader of the Warren Court, and that Warren purposefully assigned him many of the most important cases for the majority opinion.
Read: Earl Warren, The Memoirs of Earl Warren (1977)
Hear a former law clerk discuss Chief Justice Warren: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lGlUiuSbjQ
Read more: Jim Newton, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (2006)
Learn more: James F. Simon, Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties (2018)
And more: Mark Tushnet, The Warren Court in Historical and Political Perspective (1996)
Learn about Warren’s Life and Career here