SAN FRANCISCO — Goodwin Liu thinks it’s OK to disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court—and he’s not exactly shy about it.

At a conference at University of California, Hastings Law School, the liberal-leaning, Yale-educated California Supreme Court justice told an auditorium full of attendees why state courts sometimes have the prerogative to take a “dissenting view” on issues of constitutional law, and how they can do so.