Community, Society, and Individualism in Constitutional Law

• Author: David A. Super
• Position: Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics, Georgetown University Law Center
• Pages: 761-845

Community, Society, and Individualism in

Constitutional Law

DAVID A. SUPER*

Alongside the familiar ideological splits in constitutional law lies

another division older and more fundamental. Since the Federalists bat-

tled the Anti-Federalists, our allegiances have been divided between two

vastly different forms of social organization. Community is built around

the close, complex relationships among small groups of people, such as

the members of a family, the residents of a small town, or the congre-

gants of a church. On the other hand, Society organizes limited interac-

tions among relative strangers, pursuing efficiency or ideological ends.

Industrialization and urbanization ensured Society’s dominance in eco-

nomic life, politics, and law. Yet continued reverence for Community

ideals of connection and belonging keeps it a powerful force.

Society’s neglect of Community is deeply destabilizing. President

Trump’s ability to speak to many voters’ fear of Society obliterating

Community helped him triumph over establishment Republicans and

Democrats speaking the language of Society.

This affinity for Community has shaped numerous constitutional doc-

trines. Ideologically disparate Justices have united to protect key mani-

festations of Community such as small towns, schools, local police, and

juries.

Ignoring Community has undermined constitutional litigation. It has

also led to the acceptance of dubious and inconsistent analogies between

different phenomena in Community and Society. This has warped doc-

trines from campaign finance to affirmative action.

Community’s champions must decide whether to continue to regard

the federal government as the paramount threat to be cabined whenever

possible, or to see it as Community’s only hope for protection against

multinational corporations, Big Data, and other private sector threats.

This strategic choice will shape numerous areas of constitutional law.

* Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics, Georgetown University Law Center.

© 2023, David Super. The author appreciates the thoughtful comments on the ideas in this paper from

Bruce Ackerman, Nicholas Bagley, Gene Burns, Danielle Citron, Heidi Lee Feldman, Maria Glover,

Patrick Kane, Stan Katz, Ron Krotoszynski, David Pozen, Amy Uelmen, Tim Westmoreland, and the

participants in the Yale Law School Conference on the Constitution of Statutes and the Alabama,

Emory, and Georgetown Law faculty workshops; the superb research of Erin Baldwin, Cheryl

Cortemeglia, Rebecca Lopez, Kathryn Robertson, Samantha Syverson, Keisha Williams, and the staff of

the Georgetown Law Library; and the expert editing of Jabari Benjamin, Julia Gould, and their

colleagues at The Georgetown Law Journal.

761

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

I. COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY IN SOCIAL THEORY . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

A. THE ORIGINS OF THE CONCEPTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771

B. INDIVIDUALISM IN RELATION TO COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY . . . . . . . 775

C. INTERACTIONS BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777

1. Patterns of Community–Society Cooperation . . . . . . . . . 778

a. Society Facilitating Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778

b. Community Relationships Within Society

Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779

c. Coalitions of Community, Society, and

Individualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780

d. Balancing and Integrating Community and Society . . . 781

2. Society Simulating Community . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782

3. Forms of Tension Involving Community and Society . . . 783

a. Cabining and Offsetting Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 784

b. Society Conflict with Community and Personal

Liberty . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785

D. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787

II. THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES . . 788

A. THE COLONIAL PERIOD AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 789

B. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791

C. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794

1. The New Deal . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795

2. The Civil Rights Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796

D. CURRENT STRUGGLES BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY . . . . . . . 797

III. PRIVILEGING COMMUNITY IN CONSTITUTIONAL DOCTRINE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 801

A. THE COURT’S INTERVENTIONS ON BEHALF OF COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . 802

762 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 111:761

1. Protecting Organs of Community Against Outside

Disruption . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803

a. Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804

b. Small Towns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804

c. Autonomy to Define Community Values . . . . . . . . . . 806

d. Juries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807

e. Militias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 810

f. Local Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811

2. The Right to Privacy and Small-Town Relationships . . . . 812

3. The Right to Community and Marriage Equality . . . . . . . 814

4. The Court’s Evolving Understandings of State

Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 818

5. Community, Society, and the Coronavirus . .. . . . . . . . . . 819

B. PATTERNS OF CONFLICT AMONG COMMUNITY, SOCIETY, AND

INDIVIDUALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822

1. Supplanting or Regulating Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

2. Officiating Community’s Disputes with Other

Community and Individual Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824

3. Cabining or Offsetting Threats from Society . . . . . . . . . . 825

4. Society Simulating Community . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826

a. The Range of Approaches to Community Analogies. . 828

b. Broad Analogies: “Freedom of Speech”. . . . . . . . . 829

c. Rejecting Analogies: Affirmative Action. . . . . . . . . . 834

C. IDEOLOGY AND COMMUNITY ON THE SUPREME COURT . . . . . . . . . . . 836

1. Juries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839

2. Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839

3. Legislative Redistricting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840

D. COMMUNITY’S FUTURE IN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841

2023] COMMUNITY, SOCIETY, AND INDIVIDUALISM 763