In the weeks since the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, I’ve made a number of presentations about the litigation, and one question keeps coming up: Why doesn’t the Supreme Court televise its hearings?

Anthropologist Margaret Mead created plenty of controversy in her day; but on one score, she was indisputably right. “Never doubt,” she said, “that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Evidence of that truism is writ large in history. Just 50 years ago, a small army of black and white Americans led by Martin Luther King succeeded in upending laws that for decades had denied equality to black Americans. Likewise, a few dedicated women provided the impetus for passage of the law that finally gave women the right to vote.