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The Roundup Top Ten for May 6, 2022

Leaked Opinion Shows Not Just the End of Roe, but Conservatives' Delight in It

by Mary Ziegler

The court's right-wing majority is clearly emboldened by the belief that the Republican Party and the conservative legal movement have its back. 

The Reconstruction Amendments and the Basis of American Abortion Rights

by Peggy Cooper Davis

When the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were debated, concerns about the protection of both public rights of citizenship and private, intimate rights of individuals were front and center. There is, notwithstanding Samuel Alito's opinion, a long tradition of constitutional respect for privacy.

Abortion Isn't in the Constituiton? Neither are Women

by Jill Lepore

"Women are indeed missing from the Constitution. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor."

Palm Oil is Colonialism's Continuing Nightmare

by Max Haiven

The extraction and trade in palm oil in west Africa has been at the center of two centuries of exploitation and violence, which stands to get worse as the Ukraine war threatens the world supply of competing sunflower oil. 

Is Historic Preservation Ruining American Cities?

by Jacob Anbinder

Historic preservation laws often have a loose relationship to the actual historic significance of buildings, and an even looser relationship to the interests of cities in meeting their residents' social needs. 

Affluent White Parents Don't Understand the "Public" in Public Schools

by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz

Are parents' rights movements aimed at ensuring quality education, or at destroying the potential of public schools to support both learning and a democratic culture across lines of race and class? 

The Democratic Potential of China's Grassroots Intellectuals

by Sebastian Veg

Chinese intellectuals working outside the protection of state-controlled universites have a perilous existence, but carry on the struggle against the regime's efforts to impose orthodoxy on the nation's history. 

Race and Religion Have Always Helped Determine Who Gets Refuge in the US

by Laura E. Alexander, Jane Hong, Karen Hooge Michalka and Luis E. Romero

While Ukrainians fleeing war are deserving of aid from the United States, the treatment of both Haitian and Syrian refugees shows that the asylum process is far from equitable. 

How Josephine Baker Challenged Racism in Las Vegas

by Claytee White

Josephine Baker's brief stand in 1952 didn't forever break the color line in the city's casinos and clubs, but it did help Black Las Vegans push for enduring change. 

The Laundry Workers' Uprising and the Fight for Democratic Unionism

by Jenny Carson

African American and Black Caribbean immigrant women were key organizers of New York laundry workers who pushed for a union movement that rejected divisions of occupation, race and nationality in favor of workplace democracy.