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legal history

  • 10/24/2021

    Four Myths of Presidential Power

    by Daniel Farber

    History looms large in arguments about the Constitution these days. But there are widespread misunderstandings of what history tells us about presidential powers, from making war to being impeached. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    10/14/2021

    The Sleeper SCOTUS Case that Threatens Church-State Separation

    by Kimberly Wehle

    "If the plaintiffs win, states and municipalities could be required to use taxpayer dollars to supplement strands of private religious education that many Americans would find deeply offensive, including schools that exclude non-Christian or LGBTQ students, families, and teachers."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    7/27/2021

    Critical Race Theory: A Brief History

    CRT pioneers Kimberlé Crenshaw and Mari Matsuda explain how and why they developed critical perspectives on racism in legal scholarship and how little the current debate has to do with their ideas. 

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
    5/8/2021

    Hamilton, Hip-Hop, and the Law (Review)

    by Stephen Rohde

    Lisa Tucker's edited volume of essays uses the musical "Hamilton" as a lens on several significant legal issues ranging from originalism to employment discrimination. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Monthly
    5/5/2021

    “Gimme an F!” Supreme Court Mulls the Case of the Cursing Cheerleader

    by Garrett Epps

    As the Supreme Court considers whether a school district has the authority ot punish a high school cheerleader for a profane social media rant made off campus, the author wonders if legal arguments about schools' authority are overshadowing schools' obligations to prepare students for citizenship. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    3/22/2021

    When Constitutions Took Over the World

    by Jill Lepore

    Historian Linda Colley's new book examines the rise of written Constitutions as governing documents, and argues that constitiutionalism and democracy don't necessarily go hand in hand. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    3/1/2021

    Originalism’s Original Sin

    by Adam Shapiro

    Liberal critics should understand the ways that Constitutional originalism's practices of reading and resolving conflicts in the text owes a great deal to biblical literalism. Historians of religion can help understand what's at stake. 

  • 1/31/2021

    Palin v. New York Times is a Textualist Land Mine for the First Amendment

    by Richard E. Labunski

    In June, trial will begin in Sarah Palin's libel case against the New York Times. The case appears to be teed up on a path to the Supreme Court, where the current "actual malice" standard for proving a public figure was libeled could be overturned. If this happens, the door will be open to lawsuits aimed at crushing press criticism of the government.

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    12/14/2020

    Unequal Before the Law

    Sara Mayeux's history of public defenders shows how the liberal reform movement that established a system to provide counsel to the poor buttressed the systemic slant of the justice system against them. 

  • SOURCE: Duke Center for Firearms Law
    10/14/2020

    Amy Coney Barrett on Guns

    by Jake Charles

    A Second Amendment scholar examines the SCOTUS nominee's historical interpretation of prohibitions on individual firearm ownership, concluding that her record shows a commitment to gun rights but uncertainty about how she might rule on particular cases.

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    9/11/2020

    ‘On the Books’: Machine Learning Jim Crow

    by William Sturkey

    Lawyer and activist Pauli Murray undertook the arduous task of identifying racially discriminatory laws across the United States, and published a volume cataloguing them in 1950 as a took for attorneys working to dismantle Jim Crow. A University of North Carolina project uses technology to complete that task and demonstrate the historical pervasiveness of racism in the law.

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    9/1/2020

    What's Next for Abortion Law?

    by Mary Ziegler

    Thinking historically about the abortion debate shows a shift in the ground of conflict from questions of rights to questions of restriction. The debate has always been about how the costs and benefits of childbearing are shared in society.