The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court .

The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices.

When the cases in volume 211 were decided the Court comprised the following nine members: Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908), is a significant case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of states to prohibit private educational institutions chartered as corporations from admitting both black and white students.

As in the related Plessy v. Ferguson decision, it was marked by a strongly worded dissent by John Marshall Harlan.

Twining was overturned in Malloy v. Hogan (1964), in which the Court finally incorporated the right against self-incrimination.