Supreme Court

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  5/10/2022
  

  SCOTUS is Enabling a Backlash Against Free Sexual Expression

  by Rebecca L. Davis

  The history of legislation aimed at suppressing "vice" shows that abortion is tied to other forms of free sexual expression. The last sweeping attack on sexual freedom took decades to reverse.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/5/2022
  

  The Antiabortion Movement's Victory in the War of Language

  by Jennifer L. Holland

  The antiabortion movement was able to overcome American skepticism of enshrining religious views into law and demands by women for full citizenship by turning the language of rights to apply to fetuses. It remains to be seen if this language will lead to a national ban on abortion in the name of fetal personhood. 

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• SOURCE: Activist History Review
  5/4/2022
  

  For Deliverance: A Letter on Roe

  by Riley Clare Valentine

  A Catholic scholar and activist concludes "it is an act of love, of caritas, to reject the unjust undoing of Roe and to continue to help our neighbors who need access to abortions."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/3/2022
  

  Is Alito's Plan to Repeal the 20th Century?

  Alito's invocation of Plessy v. Ferguson as a reason to discard precedent is galling because his opinion would destroy the kind of protection under law that Homer Plessy actually sought. 

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• SOURCE: Substack
  5/3/2022
  

  Republican Right is Forcing the Birth of the Society it Wants (and Most Americans Don't)

  by Claire Potter

  "Memo to radical conservative activists: despite your wettest fantasies, “libs” don’t cry at moments like this. We get angry, really angry. And we fight."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  5/5/2022
  

  Why the End of Roe Isn't Likely to Energize the Democrats

  by Natalie Shure

  Until the Democratic Party and its pro-choice supporters decide to take action to fix the fact that abortion restrictions are already harming poor and working-class women, they are unlikely to win elections based on their nominal support for abortion rights. 

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• SOURCE: In These Times
  5/3/2022
  

  Protest Can – And Should – Influence the Supreme Court

  by Eric Stoner

  Direct action is the only way to push the court's majority more into line with the will of the majority of the public. 

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• SOURCE: The Constitutionalist
  3/3/2022
  

  Judicial Leaks, 19th Century Style

  by Mark A. Graber

  When a Justice leaked a draft of the Dred Scott decision to James Buchanan, hoping the president-elect would cajole a fellow Pennsylvanian on the court to join the opinion as a non-southern vote, it was a non-story. Today the focus should be squarely on the substance of Samuel Alito's ruling.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/3/2022
  

  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. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  5/4/2022
  

  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."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/3/2022
  

  Originalists Seriously Misconstrue the Constitution's Silences on Abortion

  by Laura Briggs

  Samuel Alito would argue that the Constitution's silence on abortion means the founders recognized no right to it. But it's more likely they understood abortion to be a common act that didn't intersect with the business of the government. 

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• SOURCE: Truthout
  4/25/2022
  

  The Dark Money Behind KBJ Attacks Is Coming for Public Schools

  by Alyssa Bowen

  "Dark Money" organizations allow a small group of elite families to use their wealth to control the content of education around the country. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/6/2022
  

  What Tom Cotton Got Wrong about Robert H. Jackson and Nuremberg

  by Gillian Brockell

  "Jackson not only supported the Nuremberg defendants’ right to counsel, he was a key part of the governing body that enshrined it into international law."

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• SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
  4/7/2022
  

  Historic Echoes as Mississippi Senators Vote No on Jackson Nomination

  Did some statements made by Republicans echo Senator James Eastland's questioning whether Thurgood Marshall was "prejudiced against the white people of the South"? 

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  4/7/2022
  

  How Rights Went Right

  by David Cole

  Is an all-or-nothing view of constitutional rights at the root of growing cultural clashes pitting civil rights against the free exercise of religion? A new book suggests alternatives. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  4/5/2022
  

  KBJ Confirmation Shows Misremembrance of MLK as Advocate of "Colorblindness"

  by Bev-Freda Jackson

  "Jackson’s appointment holds a significant symbolic value and adds an important message about the legacy of King’s sermons, speeches and writings."

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• SOURCE: MSNBC
  3/23/2022
  

  A Pledge to Recuse by KBJ Likely Means the End of Affirmative Action

  by Keisha N. Blain

  With a challenge to Harvard's affirmative action looming, Judge Jackson's pledge to recuse herself means that the Supreme Court is more likely to rule that affirmative action in private university admissions is unconstitutional, with the likely consequence of increasing racial inequality. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/25/2022
  

  Law Prof: KBJ Hearings Show Right Won't Stop at Smashing Roe v. Wade

  by Melissa Murray

  Conservative skepticism of "unenumerated rights" indicates that they seek a judicial regime that peels back a host of rights implicit in the constitution that protect intimate freedom and the liberty of minority groups. 

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• SOURCE: Letters from an American
  3/26/2022
  

  KBJ Confirmation Questions Show Republicans Willing to Throw Out Vast Swaths of Civil Rights Law

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  "Madison was on to something when he warned that there was a connection between establishing a religion and destroying American democracy."

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• SOURCE: Rolling Stone
  3/27/2022
  

  Historian Jeff Shesol: Ginni Thomas's 1/6 Involvement Poses Unprecedented Crisis for Court's Legitimacy

  "In a very real sense, Clarence and Ginni Thomas are answerable only to Clarence and Ginni Thomas. The Trump Administration gave us all a hard lesson in how few actual rules bind the behavior of our national leaders."