A new book by Leslie F. Goldstein, who is Judge Hugh M. Morris Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Delaware, takes an in-depth look at two centuries of U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving racial minorities.

The book, published July 28 by Edward Elgar Publishing in its Elgar Studies in Law and Society series, examines Supreme Court cases in chronological order.

In The U.S. Supreme Court and Racial Minorities: Two Centuries of Judicial Review on Trial, Goldstein considers the treatment by the court of four racial minority groups — Indians, African Americans, Asians and Hispanics.

She doesn’t ask whether the high court got its decisions “right” but examines how the court compared to other branches of the federal government at the time and whether the justices, with their lifetime appointments designed to be independent of politics, did a better job of protecting racial minorities than elected officials did.

The book concludes that judicial review was not a panacea but that it did help racial minority groups in America. The justices were especially willing to check oppressive policies by the states and administrative abuses by the federal government, Goldstein finds. She also details the Supreme Court’s leadership in issues of African-American civil rights from 1911-89.

The book has been praised by legal scholars.

“This is a remarkable book, and essential reading for anyone who cares about how civil rights are defined and protected in America,” said Keith E. Whittington of Princeton University.

Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School called it “an important work for scholars and others interested in the Supreme Court and the history of race in the United States.”

The Elgar Studies in Law and Society series publishes books that reflect cutting-edge scholarship on the role of the law in modern society and its intersection with social structures and institutions.

Goldstein specializes in American Constitutional law, comparative law and courts, gender and law, history of political theory and American political thought. Her previous books include Constitutional and Legal Rights of Women; Constituting Federal Sovereignty: The European Union in Comparative Context and Contemporary Cases in Women’s Rights.

She joined the UD faculty in 1973, was appointed the Judge Hugh M. Morris Professor in 2001 and retired in 2012.