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Wong Kim Ark's departure statement overlayed with his portrait.

How the Fight for Birthright Citizenship Shaped the History of Asian American Families

Even after Wong Kim Ark successfully took his case to the Supreme Court 125 years ago, Asian Americans struggled to receive recognition as U.S. citizens.
Alexander Hamilton stands guard over the U.S. Treasury building in Washington.

The Constitutional Case for Disarming the Debt Ceiling

The Framers would have never tolerated debt-limit brinkmanship. It’s time to put this terrible idea on trial.
Portraits of white men.

How 155 Angry White Men Chained Alabama to Its Confederate Past

Their plan required not only a social and legal division along racial lines but a political one, too — a separation that persists today.
Painting of a person facing another person whose head is made up of sixteen little heads. Untitled (Study) by Geoff McFetridge.

Originalism’s Charade

Two new books make a devastating case against claims that the Constitution should be interpreted on the basis of its purported “original meaning.”
Eric Foner sits in an arm chair on stage during an interview, holding a microphone.

“Originalism Is Intellectually Indefensible”

On the persistent myth of the colorblind Constitution that the Supreme Court's conservatives have embraced.
Supreme Court and college admissions illustration.

The Anti-Antiracist Court

How the Supreme Court has weaponized the Fourteenth Amendment and Brown v. Board of Education against antiracism.
Constance Motley and Randolph Rankin attending City Hall budget hearing, February 25, 1965

The Legal Mind of Constance Baker Motley

The story of Motley's legal career prior to Brown v. Board, and her crucial participation in it.
Portrait photo of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
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Justice Jackson Offered Democrats a Road Map for Securing Equal Rights

Tying the fight for equal rights to the founders and the Constitution has worked before.
illustration of a hand with a shredded ballot

John Roberts’s Long Game

Is this the end of the Voting Rights Act?
Photo of the Supreme Court Building

The Supreme Court Gets a Chance to Revisit America’s Imperialist Past

A trio of American Samoan plaintiffs are asking the high court to end their status as second-class citizens.
A picture of the front of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’

The conservative Supreme Court's favorite judicial philosophy requires a very, very firm grasp of history — one that none of the justices seem to possess.
Contemplation of Justice statue

The Supreme Court’s Selective Memory

The Court’s striking down of a New York gun law relies on a fundamentally anti-democratic historical record that excludes women and people of color.
A demonstrator outside the Supreme Court as the court rules in the Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization abortion case on June 24, 2022.
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Overturning Roe Could Threaten Rights Conservatives Hold Dear

Parental rights stem from the same liberty that the Supreme Court just began rolling back.
Black and white people sitting at a lunch counter.

When Rights Went Right

Is the American conception of constitutional rights too absolute?
Brett Kavanaugh
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What Justice Kavanaugh Gets Wrong About Abortion and Neutrality

Calls for the court to remain neutral have long been tools for denying Americans rights.
The illustration “Vaccinating the Poor,” by Solomon Eytinge Jr

The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

In 1905, the high court made a fateful ruling with eerie parallels to today: One person’s liberty can’t trump everyone else’s.
Statue of Dred Scott and wife

Allegiance, Birthright, and Race in America

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.
Bus station with 'colored waiting room' sign.

Plessy v. Ferguson at 125

One hundred and twenty five years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, there are still lessons to be gleaned from the case.
Chinese immigrants working in a market stop to pose for a photo

The California Klan’s Anti-Asian Crusade

Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, western vigilantes targeted those they deemed a greater threat: Chinese immigrants.
A man during the Capitol Siege holding a Confederate flag.

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.
Men and women workers marching in a 1914 May Day parade.

Time Is the Universal Measure of Freedom

In our own era of uncontrolled working hours, controlling our time is a vision of freedom worth capturing.

Suppressing Native American Voters

South Dakota has been called "the Mississippi of the North" for its long history of making voting hard for Native Americans.

Standing on the Crater of a Volcano

In 1920, James Weldon Johnson went to Washington, armed with census data, to fight rampant voter suppression across the American South.

The Achievements, and Compromises, of Two Reconstruction-era Amendments

While they advanced African American rights, they had serious flaws, Eric Foner writes.
Senate trying Andrew Johnson for impeachment in 1868.
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Impeachment is the Right Call Even if the Senate Keeps President Trump in Office

Awaiting a Senate trial might curtail Trump's worst behaviors.
Political cartoon about Reconstruction.

The Buried Promise of the Reconstruction Amendments

The historical context of the amendments passed in the wake of the Civil War, Eric Foner argues, are widely misunderstood.

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy

Business schools fetishize innovation, but their heroes succeeded due to manipulation of corporate law, not personal brilliance.

The Supreme Court Case That Enshrined White Supremacy in Law

How Plessy v. Ferguson shaped the history of racial discrimination in America.

Appalachian Whiteness: A History that Never Existed

The “fetishization” of Appalachia’s supposed racial and ethnic purity and Trump's proposal to end birthright citizenship.

A House Still Divided

In 1858, Lincoln warned that America could not remain “half slave and half free.” The threat today is as existential as it was before the Civil War.

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