Supreme Court

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• 9/26/2021
  

  Group of Historians Recognized for Best SCOTUS Brief of the Year

  by Ronald A. Smith

  A group of six historians has been recognized by the Education Law Association for the best Supreme Court brief of the year. Their historical deconstruction of the myth of amateurism in college athletics influenced a unanimous decision that the NCAA cannot bar college athletes from profiting from the commercial use of their names, images, or likenesses.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/9/2021
  

  SCOTUS Ended the Eviction Ban, but not the Fight Against Eviction

  by Maia Silber

  Philadelphia's housing crisis during the first world war shows that worker and citizen activism is essential to compel governments to act to secure adequate affordable housing. 

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• 9/2/2021
  

  Historians on the Supreme Court's Acceptance of Texas's Abortion Ban

  by HNN Staff

  The Supreme Court declined to block the implementation of a law that effectively bans abortion in the state while deputizing private citizens to enforce the ban as a trick to evade judicial review. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  7/26/2021
  

  Can Affirmative Action Survive the Supreme Court?

  by Nicholas Lemann

  The moderate Republican appointee has always served as the Justice to protect modest versions of affirmative action. What will happen in a pending case now that such Justices are gone from the court? The historical trajectory of supposedly meritocratic admissions offers clues.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/16/2021
  

  Why Let the Supreme Court Dominate Democracy?

  by Nikolas Bowie

  Liberals have been conditioned to look to the Supreme Court of Brown v. Board of Education as a protector of democracy. What if the court's dominant historical legacy is the body of decisions that enabled the rise of Jim Crow in the first place? 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  7/21/2021
  

  How America Lost the Commitment to the Right to Vote

  "The Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan lamented in a dissenting opinion earlier this month, 'has treated no statute worse' than the Voting Rights Act. She’s right."

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• 7/18/2021
  

  The 1906 Decision in Hodges v. United States Shows the Error of Leaving Fundamental Rights to the States

  by William H. Pruden III

  The Court ruled that the 13th Amendment did not create a federal right to fairly contracted labor, and called for Black workers to "take their chances with other citizens in the states where they should make their homes," despite the plain determination of those citizens to oppress and expolit them.

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• SOURCE: Southern Spaces
  7/12/2021
  

  Undoing the Voting Rights Act

  by Steve Suitts

  Samuel Alito ventured far from the legislative intent of Congress's 1982 update to the Voting Rights act, making it much more difficult to challenge restrictive state voting laws. 

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• 7/11/2021
  

  How Historians Convinced SCOTUS that the NCAA's Idea of Amateurism is a Myth

  by Ronald A. Smith

  The Supreme Court was influenced by the work of a team of historians to reject the NCAA's arguments about amateurism and open the way for college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses – something history shows they did extensively before the NCAA's rules. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  7/8/2021
  

  How Democrats Lost the Courts

  "Some Democrats are starting to suspect that the story is simpler: They’ve been chumps. They have clung to norms Republicans long ago abandoned. They have championed moderates in order to appeal to their enemies, only to watch those moderates twist in the wind."

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• SOURCE: Election Law Blog
  7/1/2021
  

  Breaking and Analysis: Supreme Court on 6-3 Vote Rejects Voting Rights Act Section 2 Case in Brnovich Case— A Significant Weakening of Section 2

  by Rick Hasen

  "The conservative Supreme Court has taken away all the major available tools for going after voting restrictions. This at a time when some Republican states are passing new restrictive voting law."

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• 7/4/2021
  

  A Faulty Court Precedent on Selective Service Leaves the Last Legal Sex Discrimination in Place

  by Kara Dixon Vuic

  Since 1981, the Supreme Court has allowed the exclusion of women from Selective Service registration on the grounds that they were excluded from combat and thus not liable to be drafted. This position is out of date with the reality of women's military service, yet the current court declined to correct its error. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/15/2021
  

  America’s ‘Great Chief Justice’ Was an Unrepentant Slaveholder

  by Paul Finkelman

  John Marshall's previous biographers have glossed over the extent of his slaveholding and his enthusiasm for the institution. Reappraisal of his legacy is entirely appropriate in light of new discoveries. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/14/2021
  

  Supreme Court Rejects Sentence Reductions for Minor Crack Offenses

  Justices disagreed about what lessons to draw from the history of the 1986 Crime Bill that created the sentencing disparity for crack cocaine offenses. Does the fact that some Black organizations at the time supported the law excuse its racist impact? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/5/2021
  

  A Supreme Court Case Poses a Threat to L.G.B.T.Q. Foster Kids

  by Stephen Vider and David S. Byers

  State and local social service agencies for decades have been actively working to protect the safety and dignity of queer youth in the foster care system. A Supreme Court case threatens that progress in the name of "religious freedom." 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/8/2021
  

  The Importance of Teaching Dred Scott

  A social media discussion among constitutional law professors has proposed minimizing the discussion of the racist language of the notorious Dred Scott decision. Does this do violence to historical understanding of the longstanding accommodation of the constitution to racism? 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/7/2021
  

  The Supreme Court Justice Who Made History By Voting No on Racial Segregation

  Peter Canellos's new book examines John Marshall Harlan, whose blistering dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson was on the losing side in 1896 but became a foundational text for civil rights and equal protection activism. 

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• SOURCE: Harvard Law Today
  5/19/2021
  

  Plessy v. Ferguson at 125

  Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack explains what the shameful decision meant, and why it still matters in 2021.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/20/2021
  

  The Abortion Fight Has Never Been About Just Roe v. Wade

  by Mary Ziegler

  "The abortion debate has never been about just Roe—and it’s never been about letting a popular majority have a say. What’s new is that this argument now meets a receptive Supreme Court for the first time in more than a generation."

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• 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.