Battle For The Marble Palace: Michael Bobelian with Alicia Bannon

The beginning of a long struggle for ideological control of the Supreme Court. 

The highest court in the land has long been a tug of war between left and right. Back in 1969, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Abe Fortas to succeed Chief Justice Earl Warren. Instead of a routine confirmation that would help cement LBJ's legacy, it ignited a war between liberals and conservatives eager to seize control of the judicial body.​ In Battle for the Marble Palace: Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Forging of the Modern Supreme Court Michael Bobelian provides a timely portrayal of the clash in this seminal moment in Court history, detailing the Machiavellian maneuvers to secure ideologically driven justices for a coming generation.​

Michael Bobelian, former research scholar at The New York Public Library, a lawyer covering the Supreme Court, and a contributing writer at Forbes.com, will be joined in conversation with Alicia Bannon, the Managing Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. 

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Registration does not guarantee admission. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A stand by line will form thirty minutes before the program.

The Program Room opens at 6 PM.

ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.