Forty-five percent of the participants in 1994 and 47 percent of the participants in 1997 said that the Court's performance was good or excellent. Thus, attitudes toward the Court appear to be rather stable. However, the public had more negative assessments of the Court's decision-making in the areas of civil rights, criminal justice, abortion, and school prayer. Half the participants in the 1997 survey agreed that the Court is doing a better job today than it did in the 1960s, about a quarter disagreed, and about a quarter were not sure. The Court received more support from liberals and moderates than from conservatives. Most participants in 1994 and 1997 said the ideologies of the justices should not be a factor in Supreme Court decision-making. Findings demonstrated that the public holds the Supreme Court in substantially higher regard than it does the Congress, although that high regard appears to break down somewhat in the context of specific, controversial areas of decision-making. Moreover, assessments of the Court do not appear to vary substantially across the race, gender, and party lines that often divide people in the United States. Tables and photograph