Jeffrey Rosen, legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a law professor at George Washington University, speaks about the Supreme Court yesterday at Brown University.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — Since John G. Roberts Jr. became chief justice, the U.S. Supreme Court has been sharply divided over hot topics such as abortion, race and the environment, but it has been unified in one area that receives far less attention: The court is decidedly pro-business.

Jeffrey Rosen, a George Washington University law professor and legal affairs editor of The New Republic magazine, made that observation yesterday during a Brown University lecture titled “The Roberts Court and American Democracy.”

“We think of this as a divided court,” Rosen said. But the court has issued unanimous rulings in more than 70 percent of cases involving business interests, such as antitrust matters or shareholder litigation, and those rulings have tended to be pro-business, Rosen said. While the legal issues in those cases have been fairly technical, they are “hugely important,” he said.

Rosen said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has won 13 of the 15 cases in which it filed friend-of-the-court briefs last year. And he said that reflects a “consensus of sorts” among the justices that are considered more liberal and those considered more conservative.

But it is an “elite consensus” that may be at odds with the “economic populism” found in the presidential campaigns of Democrat John Edwards and Republican Mike Huckabee, Rosen said. “It reminds us that there are different kinds of consensus,” he said.

Rosen is the author of a 2007 book called The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America, which is a companion to a PBS series on the court.

Rosen noted he interviewed Roberts, who joined the high court in September 2005, after he had completed his first term as chief justice, and in that interview, Roberts talked about following the example of former Chief Justice John Marshall and trying to produce narrow, unanimous Supreme Court opinions. But the court then proceeded to issue more 5-to-4 rulings than at any other time in the past decade, Rosen said.

Rosen said the Supreme Court is considered the least democratic branch of government, yet it is most effective when its rulings reflect a broad consensus in the country, and when it unilaterally imposes constitutional principles that are contested by the majority of the country, there is often a backlash and a “judicial retreat.”

So is there a backlash brewing over this divided Supreme Court’s rulings? “Not yet,” Rosen said, explaining that the court is being defined by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who “has a knack for putting his finger on the pulse of the country.” For example, Kennedy has ruled in ways that protect the legality of early-term abortions but not late-term abortions, and polls show the majority of Americans support that view, he said.

Rosen said he resists “election year alarmism” that says the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, is “hanging by a thread.” But he said, “This time maybe it is hanging by a thread.” And he talked about the possibility that the next president would appoint “movement conservatives” to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

But Rosen, who described himself as liberal, said that if that happened, a Democratic Congress would be under “huge pressure” to pass a “national freedom of choice law,” and he said such a development would focus attention on Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s opposition to abortion rights. “His appeal as a crossover candidate would collapse,” he said.

During a question-and-answer session, Rosen was asked about the “circus-like atmosphere” of Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And he told the audience, which included many college students, “When one of you is nominated to the court, those Facebook postings are going to be embarrassing.”

But on a more serious note, Rosen said confirmation hearings were so traumatic for Justice Clarence Thomas that Thomas is probably a different judge today than he otherwise would have been. “It’s not a happy story, whether you like his politics or not,” he said.

During his speech, Rosen talked about legal issues that may arise in the next 15 to 20 years, such as the possibility of “ubiquitous surveillance.”

He said that before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he visited London, which he said resembles “the set of The Truman Show it has so many cameras.” And he said a “British-style system” of surveillance is about to be installed in New York City.

Also, Rosen said he went to a conference last weekend and inquired about Google’s Street View, a feature of Google Maps that provides panoramic street-level views taken by cameras mounted on cars in certain parts of the country.

Rosen said he asked about privacy concerns, noting that two women had been photographed sunbathing, and was told people could petition to have their images removed from Street View. Also, he said he asked about the pressure Google might face from the government to use the photos to fight terrorism.

While others may disagree, Rosen said he sees the possibility of “ubiquitous surveillance” as a “dystopia,” and he asked, “Who will save us from this?”

“I would not rely on the Supreme Court to save us from this challenge,” Rosen said. Instead, he predicted that a proper balance would be struck through “democratic debate.”

Rosen’s speech marked the 42nd annual Meiklejohn Lecture, which is named for former Brown dean and philosophy professor Alexander Meiklejohn, an advocate of free speech. And Rosen said Meiklejohn’s “central insight resonates deeply with democratic constitutionalism, determined by democratic deliberation.”

efitzpat@projo.com