This is part of Amicus and Slate’s “By the People” series, exploring how the American people can reclaim the Constitution—and the law—from this monarchic Supreme Court.

Every summer, the nation waits to hear the Supreme Court announce, case by case, what the law is. This end-of-term ritual presents the court as settling the Constitution’s meaning. Yes, the court settles disputes between parties. At the same time, Americans who oppose the court’s decisions can challenge the principles on which the decisions rest, and they have done so for a very long time, in some instances ultimately succeeding in changing the law.

The birthright citizenship case the Supreme Court just decided demonstrates how deep-rooted this practice is, particularly in the conservative legal movement. The court closed its term in Trump v. Barbara announcing that birthright citizenship continues to extend to children of undocumented persons if those children were born on United States soil. Conservative critics immediately greeted the 5–4 decision by asking longingly, “Is Trump v.Barbara the New Roe?,” denouncing Justice Amy Coney Barrett for joining the majority, and urging Americans to overturn the decision: “The formidable resources of the conservative legal movement—from its theorists to its jurists—must be trained on sending Trump v. Barbara to the ash heap of judicial excess.”

Conservative legal scholars now seem to understand this truth better than progressives: The Supreme Court does not have the final word, if there is sufficient popular momentum against a decision.

The conservative legal movement honed its skills attacking decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. It developed originalist arguments against Brown and Roe, and used these arguments and judicial appointments to overturn the abortion right—and to build the originalist case for gun rights and for fetal personhood under the Constitution.

This strategy of mobilizing against court decisions is not owned by the right. Constitutional law was reshaped by the campaign to outlaw segregation, by the campaign for the Equal Rights........

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