Supreme Court

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/1/2020
  

  Religious Animus Did Not Drive The Laws The Supreme Court Just Overturned

  by Adam Laats

  Historical restrictions against "sectarian" use of tax dollars used the term broadly to encompass many religious doctrines. Claims that the laws were based in anti-Catholic bigotry are inaccurate. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  7/2/2020
  

  Woodrow Wilson Was a Hero to Jews. What Should We do with his Racism?

  by Jonathan D. Sarna

  Many find it discomforting to learn that Wilson was, at one and the same time, so bad for American Blacks and so good for American Jews.

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/23/2020
  

  We Can End Qualified Immunity Tomorrow

  We need not wait for Congress or the Supreme Court to deny police officers qualified immunity when they violate constitutional rights. State attorneys general and city law departments can—and should—lead the charge themselves.

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• SOURCE: Slate
  6/16/2020
  

  The Real Story Behind “Because of Sex”

  by Rebecca Onion

  One of the most powerful phrases in the Civil Rights Act is often viewed as a malicious joke that backfired. But its entrance into American law was far more savvy than that, led by Representative Martha Griffiths.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/16/2020
  

  What ‘Because of Sex’ Really Means

  Beneath the verbal jousting, the Court expressed dueling views of sexual orientation and gender, and how society should assess them.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/15/2020
  

  How a Segregationist Paved the Way for a Big Gay Rights Win in the Supreme Court

  A segregationist congressman's "poison pill" amendment to include sex discrimination in the 1964 Civil Rights Act became the linchpin of a ruling that LGBTQ people are protected by the act.

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• SOURCE: KUT
  5/25/2020
  

  What Might Have Been: The Forgotten History Of Women On The Supreme Court Shortlist

  In the new book, "Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court", coauthors Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson tell the story of nine women who were considered for positions on the country's highest court in the decades before O'Connor's appointment.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  5/17/2020
  

  Could 'Rogue Electors' Tilt the Balance of the US Election?

  The Supreme Court has heard arguments in cases involving "faithless electors" who depart from their state's popular vote when the Electoral College votes to choose the President. The cases evoke troubling prospects for the 2020 election being decided by a small number of electors.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  5/8/2020
  

  Historic Power Struggle between Trump and Congress to be Reviewed by Supreme Court

  by Stanley M. Brand

  Prior decisions involving Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton established precedents that seem to portend defeat for President Trump in the upcoming hearing. 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  5/5/2020
  

  The Supreme Court Hears the Biggest Presidential Immunity Cases since Nixon

  Should the most powerful man in the nation be given extraordinary legal immunity? Or does the fact that the president wields such power demand oversight of the man who holds that office?

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• SOURCE: Harvard Law Today
  4/28/2020
  

  If Democrats Win in November, Should they Pack the Supreme Court?

  Harvard Law School Professor Mark Tushnet discusses his research on FDR’s 1937 attempt to pack the Court, and the prospects for increasing the number of justices.

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• SOURCE: The Metropole
  4/20/2020
  

  Policing The Automobile: “Private” Transit In “Public” Spaces?

  by Sarah A. Seo

  "As much as courts throughout the twentieth century sought to differentiate cars from houses, the automobile straddled the public/private divide in American life." argues professor Sarah A. Seo.

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/7/2020
  

  How the Republican Party Took Over the Supreme Court

  by John Fabian Witt

  We are now at least one decade into a nearly unprecedented experiment in partisan judging at the highest court in the land. Our legal and political systems have barely begun to process what that means.
 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  4/6/2020
  

  The Supreme Court’s Disturbing Order to Effectively Disenfranchise Thousands of Wisconsin Voters

  The Supreme Court’s Republican majority, in a case that is literally titled Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, handed down a decision that will effectively disenfranchise tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters. It did so at the urging of the GOP.

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• SOURCE: Washington Monthly
  4/7/2020
  

  When Environmentalists Won Over the Supreme Court

  How one improbable legal case drove the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases.  

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• 4/5/2020
  

  US v. Sineneng-Smith Echoes the Fugitive Slave Act

  by Alan J. Singer

  A Supreme Court decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith that broadens the authority of the federal government to suppress the rights of advocates for undocumented immigrants could divide the nation irreparably.

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• SOURCE: TPM
  4/1/2020
  

  For More Than A Century, Americans Fine-Tuned The Rules Of Democracy. Why Have We Stopped?

  by Gregory P. Downs

  The United States has survived not by keeping the same system but by transforming its rules at crucial moments.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  3/24/2020
  

  In Blackbeard Pirate Ship Case, Supreme Court Scuttles Copyright Claims

  Ruling unanimously, the U.S. Supreme Court said that a videographer who spent two decades documenting the salvaging of Blackbeard's ship cannot sue the state of North Carolina in federal court for using his videos without his permission.

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• SOURCE: WFAE
  3/27/2020
  

  Darius Swann Changed Charlotte's School System, Local Historian Remembers

  Local historian Pamela Grundy discusses the Rev. Dr. Darius Swann who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte - Mecklenburg Board of Education. He died on March 8, at the age of 95.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  February 26, 2020
  

  Joe Biden is making a Supreme Court promise. Ronald Reagan did, too.

  Though some critics may dismiss it as pandering, a promise like this has a proven track record. Ronald Reagan vowed to put a woman on the Supreme Court; it was a key part of his campaign for president in 1980.