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A high school yearbook photo of Elizabeth Prewitt.

I Never Saw the System

As a white teenager in Charlotte, Elizabeth Prewitt saw mandatory school busing as a personal annoyance. Going to an integrated high school changed that.
Portrait of Aaron Burr, an American politician and lawyer who was the third vice president of the United States, serving during Thomas Jefferson's first term (1801-1805).

A Former Vice President Was Tried For Treason For an Insurrection Plot

Aaron Burr was the highest-ranking official to stand trial for treason, which some people have invoked now amid probes into ex-president Donald Trump.
The American flag depicted upside down, in a beige color scheme.

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
Charles Joseph Bonaparte formal portrait photograph.

The Architect of the FBI Was Napoleon’s Great-Nephew, Charles Bonaparte

A history of the bureau and its place in the federal government.
A climate change activist stands outside the home of Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) on June 30, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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A Return To Nineteenth-Century Style Regulation?

In an era of laissez-faire governance, a growing number of federal and state regulations were justified as necessary to protect public health and morality.
Reenactment of Old West gun fight

American Gun Culture Ignores How Common Gun Restrictions Were In The Old West

A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.
Lt. Col. Oliver North in 1987 before testifying to a committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal.
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The 1980s Hearings That Explain Why Trump’s Base Still Loves Him

Bombshell revelations won’t hurt the former president with his core supporters. We have only to look at Oliver North to know why.
Execution Chamber with restraining bed
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50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It's Time to Revive it

Fifty years ago in 1972, as spring faded and summer arrived in late June, America (and the world) was a vastly different place.
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.
U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney crying
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Title IX Has Been Spectacularly Successful And Disturbingly Unfulfilled

A lack of enforcement has blunted Title IX's transformative potential.
Cartoon of the Supreme Court with its columns tangled.

The Problem of the Supreme Court

It’s time to admit that the nation’s highest court has been a source of harm more often than it’s been a force for justice.
Silhouettes of a father and son looking at a sunset.
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Father’s Day Once Was Highly Political — and Could Become So Again

The holiday’s lack of history allowed activists to give it meaning after America’s divorce laws changed.
Black and white side by side of Presidents Nixon and Trump

Watergate's Ironic Legacy

Amidst the January 6 hearings, the fiftieth anniversary of Nixon’s scandal reminds us that it has only gotten harder to hold presidents accountable.
Minnehaha County Courthouse

Seeking the Last Remnants of South Dakota’s ‘Divorce Colony’

How Sioux Falls became a controversial Gilded Age “Mecca for the mismated.”
Gun rights advocates holding Second Amendment rally at which police officer Dick Heller spoke, at the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 31, 2020.

The Remaking of the Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s expanding interpretation of the Second Amendment threatens longstanding democratic authority to enact gun safety measures.
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.
"IX" surrounded by female athletes

The Pursuit of Equal Play: Reflecting on 50 Years of Title IX

How a 37-word clause tucked inside a new education legislation reshape women’s sports forever.
Illustration of catcher Buck Ewing of the New York Giants

Baseball's Reserve Clause and the "Antitrust Exemption"

The controversy between players and owners frequently brought baseball into the federal courts between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.
Lithograph of Sir Matthew Hale

On Roe, Alito Cites a Judge Who Treated Women as Witches and Property

Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century jurist, has been endlessly quoted by American judges and lawyers, with awful repercussions for women.
Linda Coffee working on the Roe v. Wade case

I Argued Roe v. Wade. It Would Be a Tragedy to Overturn It.

To take away the right to privacy is to take a giant step backward in American history.
Photo of Samuel Alito

Why There Are No Women in the Constitution

There is little mention of abortion in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. This seems to be a surprise to Samuel Alito.
Artistic collage of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Was Emancipation Constitutional?

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?
1861 engraving of Slaves for sale, a scene in New Orleans.

An Enduring Legacy: Financial Institutions, the Horrors of Slavery, and the Need for Atonement

Historian Daina Ramey Berry's April 2022 congressional testimony on the role of banks and insurers in US slavery.
Cover of "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution" by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath.

American Social Democracy and Its Imperial Roots

This post is part of a symposium on “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution,” a new book by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath.
Gov. Ron DeSantis shows an image from the children's book "Call Me Max" by transgender author Kyle Lukoff before signing the Parental Rights in Education bill in Shady Hills, Fla. on March 28.

How Anita Bryant Helped Spawn Florida's LGBTQ Culture War

Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, is part of a long legacy of anti-gay rhetoric and legislation in the state.
Illustration of Spanish slaves unloading ice.

Cuba & the US: Necessary Mirrors

Exponentially more enslaved Africans were forced to the lands that now make up Latin America rather than the United States. Where is their story?
Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, labeled "colored," in black and white.

Racism as Theory: A Historiography of White Supremacy Ideology

An overview of historical scholarship and socio-cultural developments in America to explain how racism became institutionalized against Black Americans.
Black and white people sitting at a lunch counter.

When Rights Went Right

Is the American conception of constitutional rights too absolute?
A still from the 1955 film 'Wiretapper.' The still depicts a man wearing headphones and touching a wire.

When New York City was a Wiretapper’s Dream

Eavesdropping flourished after WWII, aided by legal loopholes, clever hacks, and “private ears”.
Two types of intrauterine devices, copper and hormonal, such as Mirena or Skyla
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Abortion Opponents Are Gunning For Contraception, Too

Efforts to roll back abortion and contraception access aim to control women’s sexuality.

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