Justice

The U.S. government repeatedly tried to deport the midcentury labor leader over his alleged ties to the Communist Party.

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?

The long tradition of the US government using border policy as a tool for political control, stretching back to Red Scare efforts to suppress left-wing dissent.

A new history traces the development and influence of the global Wages for Housework movement from its founding to present day.

There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts.

Donald Trump is showing us what an unaccountable class of corporate decision-makers looks like—and it looks like a lot of fear, and a terrible loss of freedom.

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is eerily similar to that of the L.A. Eight when students were targeted not because of any criminal activity but because of their speech.

“The lesson of the Tinker case is: Speak up. Stand up,” Mary Beth Tinker told us.

The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.

This defense misconstrues both the Constitution and the Supreme Court decisions relying on it.

Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters.

The long battle against Title IX.

‘Operation Wetback’ and ‘Mexican Repatriation’ worked—until they didn’t.

On the schoolhouse’s role in enforcing racial hierarchy.

Spencerism in America.

The story Frances Perkins, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Labor Secretary, highlights the importance of protecting due process.

If you think mass protests can’t combat evil, remember what we did in the 1980s.

The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are aimed at reversing the civil rights movement.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, whose January 1900 essay exposed the racist reasons given by mobs for their crimes, argued that lynch law was an American shame.

A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity.

Universal birthright citizenship was never the original intent.

In the aftermath of the American Revolution, southern slaveholders were thinking about what a prison should look like for a society that was economically and socially dependent on slavery.

In the 19th century, John Conness defended the 14th Amendment and shut down proto-Trumpians.

For a century, Americans have embraced a punitive approach to addiction—one that has undermined treatment efforts.

Throughout the entire history of left-wing organizing in the United States, the building of institutions of political education has been key.

Deferring to power and authority leads inevitably to autocracy.

José ‘Cha Cha’ Jiménez and the Young Lords laid the groundwork for radical racial justice movements.

Standardized forensic exams are a useful tool for sexual-violence investigations—or they would be if police departments consistently tested their findings.

The history of enslaved firefighters offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of relying on involuntary labor to fight blazes.

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.