Justice

Unlikely activist Don Baker scored a landmark win for gay rights in Texas 42 years ago this week.

The journey of America’s police force from a non-professional night watch to a highly visible and professional force.

Leaders in the 20th-century South faced violence and death for promoting voting rights; systemic failure enabled their killers to go unpunished.

One young conservative lawyer would lead a determined fight to maintain Lewis Powell’s blindfolded race neutrality.

The enslaved Prince Whipple acutely felt the contradiction between American ideals and his condition.

The history of sheriffs suggests we need to pay attention to what our local sheriffs do, vote in local elections, and choose our sheriffs wisely.

For the first time, men are permitted to compete in artistic swimming at the 2024 Olympics. But none will.

An excess of restrictions has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.

A consideration of the evolution of Baldwin’s views on Zionism.

1934 world champion runner Zdenek Koubek, boxer Imane Khelif, and how far we haven’t come on gender in sports.

He committed mass murder at My Lai. He was also its fall guy.

A prison is a difficult thing to kill.

Revisiting Meredith v. Fair, we get the inside story of how critical race theory was developed in the years after Brown v. Board of Education.

Consequences mattered to the Founders—and that meant early American judges upheld major gun restrictions.

What a long-dead, cartoonishly corrupt Texas bureaucrat can tell us about the nature of immigration enforcement and the U.S.-Mexico divide.

What would-be killers of the US commander in chief have in common is that they aren’t fervent ideologues; they’re outcasts.

American law should protect the right of individuals to engage in charitable acts.

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.

Born enslaved, John Andrew Jackson spent his life fighting for freedom as a fugitive, abolitionist, lecturer and writer.

The essay component of American college applications has a long history, but its purpose has changed over time.

When police raided Columbia University in May, commentators drew parallels to the 1968. But the school’s hostility to the antiwar movement traces back to 1917.

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.

Despite an unwelcoming political climate and a dearth of LGBTQ+ protections, LGBTQ+ Southerners have persisted.

Even as the primary targets of immigration restrictionism have shifted, the consequences for immigrants remain profoundly shaped by the system created in 1924.

As the Supreme Court invents a law to negate all others, Chief Justice John Roberts now ranks just below Roger Taney.

The Freedom Schools curriculums developed in 1964 remain urgently needed, especially in our era of book bans and backlash.

An overlooked effect of the legislation, passed 60 years ago this week, was its powerful message of hope for Black Americans.

Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!

Eighty years ago, Americans embraced a new definition of their faith: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”