Robert Bork - Works and Views

Works and Views

Bork has written several books, including the two best-sellers The Tempting of America, about his judicial philosophy and his nomination battle, and Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, in which he argues that the rise of the New Left in the 1960s in the U.S. has undermined the moral standards necessary for civil society, and spawned a generation of intellectuals who oppose Western civilization.

In The Tempting of America (page 82), Bork explained his support for the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education:

By 1954, when Brown came up for decision, it had been apparent for some time that segregation rarely if ever produced equality. Quite aside from any question of psychology, the physical facilities provided for blacks were not as good as those provided for whites. That had been demonstrated in a long series of cases . . . The Court's realistic choice, therefore, was either to abandon the quest for equality by allowing segregation or to forbid segregation in order to achieve equality. There was no third choice. Either choice would violate one aspect of the original understanding, but there was no possibility of avoiding that. Since equality and segregation were mutually inconsistent, though the ratifiers did not understand that, both could not be honored. When that is seen, it is obvious the Court must choose equality and prohibit state-imposed segregation. The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

In 1999, Bork wrote an essay about Thomas More and attacked jury nullification as a "pernicious practice".

In 2003, he published Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule Of Judges, an American Enterprise Institute book which includes Bork's philosophical objections to the phenomenon of incorporating international ethical and legal guidelines into the fabric of domestic law. In particular, he focuses on the problems he sees as inherent in the federal judiciary of three nations, Israel, Canada, and the United States, countries where he believes the courts have grossly exceeded their discretionary powers, and which have discarded precedent and common law, and in their place substituted their own liberal judgment.

Bork also advocates a modification to the Constitution that would allow Congressional super-majorities to override Supreme Court decisions, similar to the Canadian notwithstanding clause. Though Bork has many liberal critics, some of his arguments have earned criticism from conservatives as well. Although an opponent of gun control, Bork has denounced what he calls the "NRA view" of the Second Amendment, something he describes as the "belief that the constitution guarantees a right to Teflon-coated bullets." Instead, he has argued that the Second Amendment merely guarantees a right to participate in a government militia.

Bork converted to Catholicism in 2003.

In October 2005, Bork publicly criticized the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

On June 6, 2007, Bork filed suit in federal court in New York City against the Yale Club over an incident that had occurred a year earlier. Bork alleged that, while trying to reach the dais to speak at an event, he fell, because of the Yale Club's failure to provide any steps or handrail between the floor and the dais. According to the complaint, Bork's injuries required surgery, immobilized him for months, forced him to use a cane, and left him with a limp. In May, 2008, Bork and the Yale Club reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement.

On June 7, 2007, Bork with several others authored an amicus brief on behalf of Scooter Libby arguing that there was a substantial constitutional question regarding the appointment of the prosecutor in the case, reviving the debate that had previously resulted in the Morrison v. Olson decision.

On December 15, 2007, Bork endorsed Mitt Romney for President. He repeated this endorsement on August 2, 2011.

A 2008 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy collected essays in tribute to Bork. Authors included Frank H. Easterbrook, George Priest, and Douglas Ginsburg.