![](\"http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/NEWS/050526/SCOTUS_Landmark_Hed.jpg\")
";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.sTitle = "Ten landmark decisions";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.appFooter = "Source: MSNBC research";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.appNavStyle = 4;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.bDhtml = 0;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.appLayout = 3;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.copyHeight = 240;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.copyWidth = 310;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.copyMargin = 9;
SCOTUSLandmarkCases.headlineStyle = "color:#cc0000;";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "Ever since Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803 first established the power of the Supreme Court to review and strike down laws passed by Congress, the Court's decisions have changed the course of American history. Click at left for ten landmark rulings by the high court.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Dred Scott v. Sanford ","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1857: In an opinion by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the court held that blacks could not become citizens of the United States and that slave owners had the right to take their slaves into U.S. territories. The decision added to the North-South animosity that eventually led to the Civil War.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Yick Wo v. Hopkins","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1886: In a case involving a Chinese laundry owner in San Francisco, the court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment \"is not confined to the protection of citizens,\" but instead its protections \"are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality.\" This provided a basis for Supreme Court rulings in the 1970s and 1980s that called for states to provide education and other benefits to illegal aliens.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. II","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1895: Responding to declining tariff revenues and Populist pressure to tax the wealthy, Congress imposed a 2 percent income tax in 1894. The court ruled the tax unconstitutional, leading to popular backlash and ratification of the 16th amendment, which authorized an income tax.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Plessy v. Ferguson","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1896: The court upheld a Louisiana law requiring racial segregation on trains. The justices said the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment \"could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color\" or to enforce \"a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either.\" ";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","West Coast Hotel v. Parrish ","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1937: After years of ruling against government regulation of wages and working conditions, the court, led by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, reversed itself and upheld Washington state's minimum wage law. Coming in the middle of a congressional debate over President Roosevelt's \"court-packing\" proposal to add pro-regulation justices to the high court, the decision helped undermine support for the plan.
";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","U.S. v. Carolene Products ","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1938: In the famous \"footnote four,\" Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone began a constitutional revolution by declaring that the court would apply a minimal \"rational basis\" test to review economic regulations, but would apply a \"more exacting judicial scrutiny\" to laws which impinged on freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, or which targeted religious or ethnic minorities. This ultimately led to the court using a \"strict scrutiny\" test to strike down state laws including English literacy requirements for voting.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Brown v. Board of Education","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1954: The court discarded the \"separate but equal\" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson and declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Roe v. Wade","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "1973: The court held that state laws prohibiting abortions except to save the life of the mother were unconstitutional because they violated a right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment. \"This right of privacy is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy,\" declared Justice Harry Blackmun, writing for the majority.
";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Grutter v Bollinger","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "2003: The court upheld the University of Michigan's use of racial and ethnic preferences to increase the numbers of black, Latino and Native American applicants admitted to its law school. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, held that \"race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time\" and predicted that \"25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.\"";
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i++] = new Array("","Lawrence v. Texas","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "");
SCOTUSLandmarkCases[i-1].body = "2003: The court struck down state anti-sodomy laws, deeming them a violation of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy said decisions relating to marriage, procreation, and child rearing are constitutionally protected and \"persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.\"";
// END editorial data