legal history — Bunk History

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A painting of the American Founders at the Constitutional Convention.

Inventing American Constitutionalism

On "Power and Liberty," a condensed version of Gordon Wood's entire sweep of scholarship about constitutionalism.

by Gordon S. Wood, Brian A. Smith via Law & Liberty on March 10, 2023

Black and white image of Charles Hamilton Houston, standing at a desk alongside other attorneys, circa 1940.

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the History Behind Colorblind Admissions

Colorblindness has a long history in college admissions, the Black intellectual tradition, and today’s assault on affirmative action and race-conscious policies.

by Brandon James Render via Black Perspectives on November 4, 2022

Map of the Cherokee Country in 1900

How the Supreme Court Failed to Stop the Brutal Relocation of Indigenous American Nations

On the legal challenges to racist presidential policy that led to the Trail of Tears.

by Joel Richard Paul via Literary Hub on October 25, 2022

Photograph of Felix Frankfurter opening a briefcase.

A Prisoner of His Own Restraint

Felix Frankfurter was renowned as a liberal lawyer and advocate. Why did he turn out to be such a conservative Supreme Court justice?

by Jed S. Rakoff via New York Review of Books on October 13, 2022

Photo of E.P.A Headquarters, shot through a bush

How Government Ends

Through an assault on administrative agencies, the Supreme Court is systematically eroding the legal basis of effective governance.

by Lisa Heinzerling via Boston Review on September 28, 2022

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.

by Matt Ford via The New Republic on September 19, 2022

Black and white photo of African American girl attending a white segregated school

A Powerful, Forgotten Dissent

Among the thousands of cases the Supreme Court has decided, only a handful of dissenting opinions stand out.

by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on September 15, 2022

The Justice Who Wanted the Supreme Court to Get Out of the Way

Felix Frankfurter warned that politicians, not the courts, should make policy.

by John Fabian Witt via The New Republic on August 26, 2022

A protest sign raised in front of the Supreme Court, reading, "Keep abortion safe, legal, & accessible!"

The History of Abortion Law in the United States

The right to abortion has been both supported and contested throughout history. When banned, abortions still occur, but legal restrictions make them less safe.

by Carrie N. Baker via Our Bodies Ourselves Today on August 12, 2022

US Airforce nurses treating patients.

The Better Roe: The Case of Struck v. Secretary of Defense

When Susan Struck fought being discharged for pregnancy from the US Air Force, it brought the right to choose into a different light.

by Kara Dixon Vuic via Perspectives on History on August 10, 2022

The cover of the book "This Earthly Frame," depicting clouds swirling around the US Capitol dome.

The Struggle to Make the United States Secular

How progressives came to think that any recognition of Christianity by a public institution violates others’ rights.

by Johann N. Neem via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 15, 2022

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) listens to former president Donald Trump as they speak during a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border wall on June 30, 2021, in Pharr, Tex. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The New Threat to Good Schooling for Minority Americans

The right might be targeting a seminal Supreme Court case that protects educational fairness.

by Rann Miller via Made by History on July 10, 2022

The Supreme Court behind trees

When the Supreme Court Makes a Mistake

The history of the Supreme Court is replete with outrages and abominations, but they can be tough to overcome.

by Peter S. Canellos via Politico Magazine on June 29, 2022

Pro choice protestor with "My Mind My Body My Choice" poster

The Supreme Court Decision That Defined Abortion Rights for Thirty Years

The centrist, compromising view of reproductive rights in Planned Parenthood v. Casey helped clear the path to overturn Roe v. Wade.

by Jessica Winter via The New Yorker on June 25, 2022

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.

by Daphna Renan, Nikolas Bowie via The Atlantic on June 8, 2022

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.

by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on May 18, 2022

Photograph of abortion pro-choice activists demonstrating outside the Supreme Court.

Originalists are Misreading the Constitution’s Silence on Abortion

The originalist case for lifting abortion restrictions.

by Laura Briggs via Made by History on May 3, 2022

“Deeply Rooted in this Nation’s History and Tradition"

The bad history in Alito’s draft overturning Roe v. Wade.

by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on May 3, 2022

Statue of Jefferson in front of white columns of building facade

The Decline of Church-State Separation

The author of new book explains the fraught and turbulent relationship between religion and government in the U.S.

by Steven Green, Eric C. Miller via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on April 26, 2022

Black and white people sitting at a lunch counter.

When Rights Went Right

Is the American conception of constitutional rights too absolute?

by David Cole via New York Review of Books on March 31, 2022

Michikinikwa ("Little Turtle") statue by Douglas Hyde.

Native Prohibition in the Federal Courts

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.

by Winston Bowman via Federal Judicial Center on March 1, 2022

Picture of the U.S. Supreme Court

Reading the 14th Amendment

A review of three books about Abraham Lincoln, the 14th Amendment, and Reconstruction.

by Earl M. Maltz via National Review on February 3, 2022

Drawing of a spiral bound notebook with pen markings.

Fighting Racial Bias With an Unlikely Weapon: Footnotes

A collaborative project by legal scholars sets out to make visible the vast array of legal precedents based on cases involving enslaved people.

by Justin Wm. Moyer via Washington Post Magazine on January 14, 2022

White police officers arresting Black children, 1963

Rescuing MLK and His Children's Crusade

A new book traces the tactics of groundbreaking lawyer Constance Baker Motley amid pivotal protests in Birmingham.

by Tomiko Brown-Nagin via Harvard Gazette on January 13, 2022

A bus, and a Black man at the bus stop standing under a sign for a "Colored Waiting Room."

Homer Plessy Was Never a Criminal. Now His Record Reflects That.

In rejecting Plessy’s argument that the Jim Crow law implied Black people were inferior, the Supreme Court upheld the notion of “separate but equal.”

by Keisha N. Blain via MSNBC on January 5, 2022

Watercolor painting of enslaved people walking barefoot on a forced march, with white men on horseback at the front and back of the line.

Reparative Semantics: On Slavery and the Language of History

Scholarly accounts of slavery have been changing, but these correctives sometimes say more about historians than the historical subjects they're writing about.

by Nicholas T. Rinehart via Commonplace on January 4, 2022

Brett Kavanaugh

What Justice Kavanaugh Gets Wrong About Abortion and Neutrality

Calls for the court to remain neutral have long been tools for denying Americans rights.

by David Cohen, Maya Manian via Made by History on December 13, 2021

Protesters in front of the Supreme Court, one with a "Keep Abortion Legal" sign and the other dressed in a Handmaid's Tale costume.

The Unknown Supreme Court Clerk Who Single-Handedly Created the Roe v. Wade Viability Standard

All roads lead to Larry Hammond, Justice Lewis Powell’s law clerk at the time.

by James D. Robenalt via Retropolis on November 29, 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse Is an American

Our country's legal history renders the teen's case familiar if not inevitable.

by Patrick Blanchfield via Gawker on November 16, 2021

A mural depicting the portrait of Ahmaud Arbery, on the side of a building.

Trial of Arbery's Killers Hinges on Law that Originated in Slavery

Georgia enacted the Citizen's Arrest Law in an attempt to maintain control of enslaved people.

by Alan J. Singer via HNN on November 7, 2021

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