On Tuesday, as many students around the country start the school year, the eyes of the nation will turn to the Senate Judiciary Committee as it begins hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to our highest court. The convergence of these two events presents an opportunity to stress the crucial intersection of two distinctively American institutions: the public schools and the Supreme Court.

Public education occupies a central place in our national identity. As the politician Adlai Stevenson once remarked, “The most American thing about America is the free common school system.” Similar assessments have been made of our judiciary. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville offered a prominent formulation of this idea: “There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.” Over the following two centuries, the judiciary, with the Supreme Court at its apex, has assumed only a greater role in American society.

Although these two institutions are seldom studied in concert, it is impossible to grasp the full significance of either one without understanding the other. You cannot understand public education in the United States today without appreciating how the Supreme Court shapes the everyday realities of school life. Conversely, you cannot comprehend the Supreme Court’s role in American life without appreciating how its education decisions shape our social world.

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