Reason in All its Splendor

Abstract

My intention is to celebrate Goldberg v. Kelly, but that task is complicated by the fact that there are two decisions that go by that name. The first was decided twenty years ago and is the ostensible subject of this symposium.1 It required an adversarial hearing prior to the termination of welfare benefits, and in so doing developed the law along two different axes. The so-called due process revolution of the 1960s was extended from the criminal to the civil domain, and the procedural protections traditionally afforded to the property of the privileged classes were now to be provided to the property of the less fortunate.