1. In PvF the supreme court is a discourse community. They have they own genre in the forms of opinion essays for the majority and the dissent. They have a very high standard of entry with law degrees and time served as judges in higher courts. During this time their goal focused on public health and enforcing the letter of the law. They have a way to communicate and share information with others. The justices of the supreme court have their own lexis that in their documents are hard to understand by someone not in the law profession.

Taking a look at Tourgee he could also be part of a discourse community. The goal would be to protect and improve the rights of african american citizens. They could communicate through briefs, letters, articles in the newspaper/magazine and share information on the progress they have made or lack there of.

2. Just looking at the supreme court they spread their knowledge in the form of written opinionated essay’s by the majority and the dissent. The majority opinion would set precedent on how that law should be interpreted and the dissent would give their opinions on the danger or why the majority might be mislead. Since the supreme court is the law of the land the majority opinion would be made public in newspapers/magazines.

3. The supreme court set the foundation for future american jim crow laws by upholding the decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case to declare that separate but equal was constitutional. Before that they kept ruling on cases involving the 14th amendment and the civil rights acts and basically narrowed that it only applies to the states not the individual.