by Robert Brustein

About the author: Robert Brustein is a professor of English at Harvard University, the drama critic for the New Republic magazine, and the founding director of Yale Repertory and American Repertory Theatres.

During 1997–1998, the Supreme Court made at least two bad decisions having to do with relations between private behavior and public morality. First, the Court ruled that Paula Jones’s civil case could proceed before Clinton left office, on the reasoning that it would not interfere with his conduct of the Presidency—a judicial blunder swiftly exposed by the events of the [subsequent] few months. History will take a bit longer to demonstrate the folly of the Court’s eight-to-one decision upholding the decency test in awarding arts grants through the National Endowment for the Arts...