Felix Frankfurter

Felix Frankfurter
Harris & Ewing, photographer · Public domain · source
Name	Felix Frankfurter
Caption	Frankfurter c. 1939
Office	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Nominator	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Term start	January 30, 1939
Term end	August 28, 1962
Predecessor	Benjamin N. Cardozo
Successor	Arthur Goldberg
Birth date	15 November 1882
Birth place	Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Death date	22 February 1965
Death place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Education	City College of New York (BA), Harvard Law School (LLB)
Spouse	Marion Denman, 1919, 1965

Contents

Early life and education
Legal career and academic work
Supreme Court appointment and judicial philosophy
Role in civil rights cases
Relationship with civil rights leaders
Views on judicial restraint and activism

Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 to 1962. Appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he was a key figure in 20th-century American jurisprudence whose advocacy for judicial restraint significantly shaped the Court's approach during the early decades of the US Civil Rights Movement. His complex legacy includes influential opinions on civil liberties and a cautious philosophy that often placed him at odds with more activist justices on matters of racial equality.

Early life and education

Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on November 15, 1882. His family emigrated to the United States in 1894, settling in New York City's Lower East Side. He excelled academically, graduating from the City College of New York in 1902. Frankfurter then attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1906 and was deeply influenced by professors like John Chipman Gray and James Barr Ames. His immigrant background and elite legal education forged a belief in the American legal system as an instrument of orderly progress.

Legal career and academic work

After law school, Frankfurter worked briefly at a New York City law firm before serving as an assistant to Henry L. Stimson, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He later joined the faculty of Harvard Law School in 1914, where he became a renowned professor of administrative law. During World War I, he served as a legal advisor to President Woodrow Wilson and was a key figure in wartime labor mediation. A committed progressive, he was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 1920 and gained national attention for his advocacy in controversial cases like the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. His academic work emphasized the practical workings of government and the importance of expert administration.

Supreme Court appointment and judicial philosophy

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a longtime friend and ideological ally, appointed Frankfurter to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by Benjamin N. Cardozo. On the Court, Frankfurter became the intellectual leader of a faction advocating for judicial restraint. He argued that judges should defer to the decisions of democratically elected legislatures and executive branches, particularly on matters of economic and social policy. This philosophy was rooted in a deep respect for federalism and the separation of powers. He often clashed with more interventionist justices like Hugo Black and William O. Douglas.

Role in civil rights cases

Justice Frankfurter's approach to civil rights cases was characterized by his general philosophy of restraint, which sometimes led to cautious or dissenting opinions in pivotal matters. He concurred in the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education (1954), but worked behind the scenes to ensure a unanimous, carefully worded decision. However, in earlier cases, he often voted to uphold state authority. For instance, in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), he wrote the majority opinion upholding compulsory flag salutes, a decision later overturned in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). In Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), he joined the majority ruling that courts could not enforce racially restrictive covenants. His most famous civil rights opinion may be his concurrence in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), which forcefully reaffirmed that the *Brown* decision was the supreme law of the land.

Relationship with civil rights leaders

Frankfurter had a long and complicated relationship with key figures in the civil rights movement. As a professor, he was a mentor to Charles Hamilton Houston, the architect of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's litigation strategy. He maintained correspondence with Thurgood Marshall, offering advice, though Marshall often found Frankfurter's judicial caution frustrating. Frankfurter's relationships were also strained by his perceived prioritization of procedural regularity over substantive justice in some cases, which leaders of direct action campaigns viewed as an impediment.

Views on judicial restraint and activism