How Does Plessy's Personal Ideologies Affect The Judicial System?

When Justices are appointed, they take the oath to make decisions that are fair and according to the Constitution. The decisions justices take every day affect the lives of Americans in many ways. The Justices are given the heavy responsibility to interpret the law and Constitution. However, many times Justices get confused about the original intent of the law, and therefore interpret it different from what the legislators wrote back then. Since the legislators of the Constitution are not alive today, Justices have to try their best to make decisions according to the law. Moreover, interpretation of the law from one judge to another can be different. Many times Supreme Court Justices use their own personal political ideology to interpret laws
In future cases, Justices might choose to rule the case similar to its precedent or may decide to rule it differently. In either case, Justices exercise their personal ideology and their authority of interpretation to decide the case. For example, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown V. Board of Education were two cases of similar subject with different rulings. In both cases, the Justices interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause differently which led to different rulings on similar subjects. In the Plessy V. Ferguson (1986), the Supreme Court permitted segregation, while in Brown V. Board of Education (1954) the Justices did not use the precedent case of Plessy V. Ferguson to decide on the case ruling, and therefore ruled to desegregate schools. Similarly, Justices interpretation of the Constitution using their personal ideology played an important role in the same-sex marriage issue. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed DOMA act into law which banned same-sex marriage because marriage was believed to be between man and woman. In the United States V. Windsor (2013) case, the Justices interpreted the DOMA as unconstitutional and as a violation of the Fifth