624 The Journal of American History September 2009 of Dissent might view the marches as the story, monograph on the U.S. Supreme Court dur- for Ghaziani, the marches are important stag- ing William H. Rehnquist’s years as chief ing grounds for theorizing the dynamic inter- justice (1986–2005) will interest primarily play between culture, dissent, and emergent scholars already familiar with that discipline’s identities organized around sexual orientation recent analytical literature on the high court. from the 1970s to 2000. Maveety’s title refers to Justice Sandra Day The book alternates between historical over- O’Connor, whose retirement, in tandem with views and close studies of each march. In the Rehnquist’s death, marked the end of a ju- chapters on the marches, Ghaziani focuses on dicial era during which O’Connor’s narrow- six organizational tasks each had to address: gauge moderation often trumped the chief whether and when to march, title or theme, justice’s traditional conservatism. speakers, platform, and organizing structure. Maveety’s characterizations of the Rehnquist Similarly, historical chapters examine a con- court and its justices will occasion no surprise. sistent set of issues: community consciousness, She highlights “O’Connor’s critical role as a organizational development, external threats, decisional pivot” on a court that will be “best and the cultural and political status of sexu- remembered for its judicial individualism and al minorities. The beauty of Ghaziani’s orga- presumptive theory of judicial power” (pp. 3, nization is that readers see change and conti- 4). By individualism Maveety means the jus- nuity at the same time. In having a consistent tices’—and particularly O’Connor’s—unusu- point of comparison, Ghaziani offers ample al proclivity for writing concurring opinions evidence of the way that knowledge, expertise, rather than, or in addition to, signing on to a and identities are passed along, and also altered majority opinion of the Court. This “decision- or cast off. The drawback is that one’s view is al multivocality,” as Maveety calls it, underlies harnessed to one paradigm of politics. Within her book’s “main claim . . . that the Rehnquist that paradigm many wonderful archival details Court’s ‘supremely individualist’ conception of are on display, ranging from which local groups judicial power was its primary contribution” to participated and whose views dominated to the both American law and the Court’s own legacy platforms (tentative evidence of consensus) (pp. 6, 61). each march produced. Highlights of the big Queen’s Court likewise reiterates how historical story told here include details of the O’Connor’s “rule-of-thumb jurisprudence” tremendous momentum of gay activism that and “her context-based and multifactor doc- was unleashed by acquired immune deficien- trinal style” came to define most of the Reh- nquist era’s best-known decisions (pp. 103, cy syndrome (aids) and effectively harnessed 102). Maveety accurately states that this was “a in the late 1980s; and the movement from lo- decisional methodology that seemed restrained cally derived gay identities to nationally man- in particular cases, but in reality profoundly aged and celebrity-informed ones by 2000. The increased judicial power and discretion” (p. combination of Ghaziani’s attention to identity 148). formation as fashioned from dissent and ma- The most interesting portion of Queen’s terial expression of political solidarity, as well Court is a fourteen-page section of chapter 4 as the archival record of glbt group process, (pp. 112–26) where Maveety discusses how make this a fascinating account. the Rehnquist court’s “practice of judicial su- Jane Gerhard premacism” significantly altered many “court Mount Holyoke College commentators’ views of the judicial role” (pp. South Hadley, Massachusetts 117, 108). Between 1954 and the 1970s, “a progressively activist Supreme Court . . . be- Queen’s Court: Judicial Power in the Rehnquist came the contemporary standard of normalcy” Era. By Nancy Maveety. (Lawrence: Univer- as decisions from Brown v. Board of Education sity Press of Kansas, 2008. xii, 194 pp. $29.95, (1954) through Roe v. Wade (1973) became ju- isbn 978-0-7006-1610-7.) dicial coin of the realm (p. 108). However, “the Rehnquist Court’s record The political scientist Nancy Maveety’s brief changed those sanguine views of judicial in- Book Reviews 625 volvement in the political process and instead arena. As Laegreid shows, in the early twen- inaugurated a profound reconsideration of tieth century, courts were sometimes the influence and role of the Supreme Court chosen from the ranks of women bronc and in public policy making and in American life” trick riders, racers, and ropers. But this prac- (pp. 107–8). Recognizing how the justices tice declined as “community-sponsored rodeo were betraying “a notion of judicial power queens” provided a more “genteel alternative that defied limitation, because ad-hoc rule-of- of a cowgirl athlete” (pp. 18, 57). thumb balances could always be struck,” critics Yet horsemanship remained, and remains, on both the left and the right expressed “dis- a principal criterion for queen selection. Thus, approval of the Court’s new-style judicial pre- unlike National Association for Stock Car eminence” (p. 115). Before long, many liberal Auto Racing and fishing derby royalty, or foot- legal academics who had once been cheerlead- ball homecoming queens, rodeo queens always ers for the most famous rulings of the War- appear in the sports arena, mounted and racing ren and Burger courts were suddenly voicing their horses at great speed (and at considerable “diminished contemporary faith in judicial re- personal danger) around the track. Although view” (p. 153). their competitive role in rodeo events has de- To the more cynical among us, such a rap- clined since World War II, rodeo queens and id and pronounced academic change of tune princesses still ride through the rodeo arena as appeared to stem from purely political biases cowgirls, not as sponsors or window dressing. about what sort of Bush-era oxen the Rehn- Laegreid is the first scholar to successfully quist court’s Republican majority was most research and analyze this subject. Her work is likely to [G]ore. Maveety offers a more char- preceded by Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence’s Ro- itable, or naïve, view, writing that “the reac- deo (1982); Teresa Jordan’s Cowgirls (1982); tion to the Rehnquist era was not ideologically and Mary Lou Lecompte’s Cowgirls of the Ro- motivated,” but Queen’s Court is a consistently deo (1993), which analyzed, respectively, the smart commentary on O’Connor and Rehn- gender component, oral traditions, and athlet- quist’s judicial legacy (p. 126). icism of rodeo royalty as small components of David J. Garrow their larger studies. University of Cambridge The only other rodeo royalty–specific book, Cambridge, United Kingdom Joan Burbick’s Rodeo Queens and the Ameri- can Dream (2002), is too mired in feminist/ Riding Pretty: Rodeo Royalty in the American Marxist theory to provide a truthful view of West. By Renée M. Laegreid. (Lincoln: Uni- these cowgirl queens and princesses. Laegreid’s versity of Nebraska Press, 2006. xii, 273 pp. book now replaces Burbick’s, and is the only $29.95, isbn 978-0-8032-2955-6.) objective, research-based, scholarly work on the subject. This book fills an important place in the grow- Laegreid utilizes a case study method, focus- ing field of rodeo studies, a subfield of western ing on the famed Pendleton (Oregon) Round- history pursued by historians, economists, Up, Cheyenne (Wyoming) , and cultural anthropologists, folklorists, and gen- Stamford (Texas) Reunion , der and sports studies scholars. Renée M. and the Miss Rodeo America pageant (she also Laegreid has produced a well-written, well- examines other rodeos). She uses oral inter- ­documented history explaining how “com- views and a quantitative survey of four dozen munities throughout the West adopted and former queens and princesses; she has, to this adapted the phenomenon to suit writer’s knowledge, read every published rodeo the characteristics of their own celebrations” royalty cowgirl memoir in print. And she has (p. 212). incorporated this primary material into the One of the tricky aspects of studying ro- analyses of the above-mentioned scholars and deo royalty is that these queens (and princess- the great rodeo historians—Clifford P. Wester- es) have been, and to an important degree still meier, Kristine Fredriksson, Wayne Wooden, are, cowgirls as well as figureheads in the rodeo and Gavin Ehringer.