Designed to be used with above-average junior high students or to serve as a take-off point for high school students, this unit raises the question of what the role of the Supreme Court is in American government. The unit begins with evidence of the Court's deciding different ways at different times in similar cases, and proceeds to an investigation of the Court Packing fight of the 1930's, in which the Court emerges as a distinctly political institution. In subsequent sections, the student investigates the origins of the Court, the principle of judicial review, and the views of those who believe that the Court acts "unconstitutionally" and/or "undemocratically." Final sections raise the question of how American liberties are protected in a majoritarian "government of laws." (Author)