legal history — Bunk History

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The Anti-Slavery Constitution

From the Framers on, Americans have understood our fundamental law to oppose ownership of persons.

by Timothy Sandefur via National Review on September 12, 2019

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.

by Eric Foner, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on September 9, 2019

The Contradictions of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The Supreme Court justice may have been heralded by many of his progressive peers, but the legacy he left behind is far more ambiguous.

by Brenda Wineapple via The Nation on August 13, 2019

The Bad-Apple Myth of Policing

Violence perpetrated by cops doesn’t simply boil down to individual bad actors—it’s also a systemic, judicial failing.

by Osagie K Obasogie via The Atlantic on August 2, 2019

Supreme Court building under dark rainclouds.

Critics of the Administrative State Have a History Problem

If they return governance to its 19th century roots, they will also do away with courts' ability to review agency action.

by Sophia Z. Lee via LPE Project on August 1, 2019

The Radical Roots of Free Speech

Conservatives like to claim that leftists are opponents of free speech. But that’s nonsense.

by Chase Burghgrave, Laura Weinrib via Jacobin on July 25, 2019

The Supreme Court Decision That Kept Suburban Schools Segregated

A 1974 Supreme Court decision found that school segregation was allowable if it wasn’t being done on purpose.

by Jon Hale via The Conversation on July 24, 2019

Biden’s Defense Of Anti-Busing Past Distorts History Of Segregation In Delaware

Like other northern liberals in the 1970s, Biden worked to restrict federal civil rights enforcement to the Jim Crow South.

by Matthew D. Lassiter via Talking Points Memo on July 18, 2019

Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It

The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives.

by Gregory H. Shill via The Atlantic on July 9, 2019

Political cartoon of Columbia giving the Civil Rights bill to a Black man.

What Are These Civil Rights Laws?

The context and aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

by Daniel Brook via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 27, 2019

The Theory That Justified Anti-Gay Crime

Fifty years after Stonewall, the gay-panic defense seems absurd. But, for decades, it had the power of law.

by Caleb Crain via The New Yorker on June 26, 2019

A Bureaucratic Prologue to Same-Sex Marriage

The weddings made possible by local government and broad legal language.

by Michael Waters via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 24, 2019

How Cars Transformed Policing

Most communities barely had a police force and citizens shared responsibility for enforcing laws. Then the car changed everything.

by Sarah A. Seo via Boston Review on June 3, 2019

Two people studying law books.

Repository of Historical Gun Laws

The Duke Center for Firearms Law's efforts to catalog the history of gun laws.

via Duke Center For Firearms Law on June 1, 2019

How Mandatory Vaccination Fueled the Anti-Vaxxer Movement

To better understand the controversy over New York’s measles outbreak, you have to go back to the late 19th century.

by Linda Poon via CityLab on April 24, 2019

Sandra Day O'Connor

How the Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Helped Preserve Abortion Rights

When Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first woman on the Supreme Court, her views on abortion became a source of intense speculation.

by Evan Thomas via The New Yorker on March 27, 2019

Wayward Leviathans

How America's corporations lost their public purpose.

by David Ciepley via The Hedgehog Review on March 1, 2019

Migrant Children in Custody: The Long Battle for Protection

The number of detained migrant youth has reached record highs and led to lawsuits over the Trump government’s treatment of minors.

by Sarah Weiser, Noah Madoff via Retro Report on February 20, 2019

The Supreme Court Case That Enshrined White Supremacy in Law

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

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on February 4, 2019

Japanese American woman and baby wearing tags, and people crowded into an internment camp.

How Activists Resisted — And Ultimately Overturned — An Unjust Supreme Court Decision

And why they must resist the Court's current race-based precedents.

by Robert L. Tsai via Made by History on January 30, 2019

When King was Dangerous

He's remembered as a person of conscience who carefully broke unjust laws. But his challenges to state authority place him in a much different tradition: radical labor activism.

by Alex Gourevitch via Jacobin on January 21, 2019

Truman Declared an Emergency When He Felt Thwarted. Trump Should Know: It Didn’t End Well.

Truman seized control of the country’s steel mills during the Korean War. It led to a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court.

by Steve Hendrix via Retropolis on January 11, 2019

Half the Land in Oklahoma Could be Returned to Native Americans. It Should Be.

A Supreme Court case about jurisdiction in an obscure murder has huge implications for tribes.

by Rebecca Nagle via Washington Post on November 28, 2018

“A Place to Die”: Law and Political Economy in the 1970s

What the substandard conditions at a Pittsburgh nursing home revealed about the choices made by lawmakers and judges.

by Karen Tani via LPE Project on October 18, 2018

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Progressives and the Court

A response to Samuel Moyn’s “Resisting the Juristocracy.”

by Andy Seal via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on October 8, 2018

Cruel and Usual

Proponents believe lethal injection to be a medical marvel, but in reality it’s junk science.

by Jackie Roche, Liliana Segura via The Nib on October 1, 2018

On the Supreme Court, Difficult Nominations Have Led to Historical Injustices

When it comes to partisan Supreme Court nominations, history repeats itself.

by Calvin Schermerhorn via The Conversation on September 28, 2018

“Young Appearance”: Assessing Age through Appearance in Early America

In early America, one's looks, rather than date of birth, often determined one's age.

by Holly N. S. White via The Junto on September 18, 2018

The Bosses' Constitution

How and why the First Amendment became a weapon for the right.

by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on September 12, 2018

The Supreme Court Is Headed Back to the 19th Century

The justices again appear poised to pursue a purely theoretical liberty at the expense of the lives of people of color.

by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on September 4, 2018

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