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With today’s stunning decision outlawing race-conscious affirmative action policies at universities, Chief Justice John Roberts has completed a long conservative crusade. Sweeping aside the historical evidence that shows the Constitution has never been “colorblind” and that affirmative action programs were intended and have been proven to work, as the
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I just read this brilliant opinion — technically a ruling about the gun rights of felons, but really a broadside against the abomination of judicial “originalism” — and only at the end noticed that it comes from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. (Wait, wait, I promise
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Few social movements trace their birth to an event as unexpected and dramatic as the one that gave public life to the cause of gay liberation. On Friday, June 27, 1969, a group of Manhattan police officers set off to close down the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the
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On June 25, 1962, the Supreme Court handed down one of its biggest rulings in the “school prayer” case of Engel v. Vitale. In light of recent proposals calling for a return of school prayer, I thought it might make sense to run through a little of this history. (What
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With new reporting from Pro-Publica showing that Associate Justice Sam Alito — just like Associate Justice Clarence Thomas — has been receiving generous “gifts” from conservative billionaires with business before the Supreme Court, it’s worth remembering the time conservatives hounded a liberal justice off the bench for improper financial ties to
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First of all, I’m so sorry for the double emails on today’s post! (Ray Liotta voiceover: “They called him Kevin Two-Times.”) I’m still figuring out the controls here at Substack Central and wound up sending it twice. The first one should still work to read, but if
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Today marks the anniversary of one of the most brutal chapters in the civil rights movement — the murders of Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The three men were all involved in the Mississippi Freedom Summer, an aggressive campaign by activists to register eligible black voters in Mississippi in
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With today’s news about Hunter Biden’s legal troubles, I thought I’d drop a quick note about the all-time champion in the category of First Family Fuckups — the legendary Billy Carter. When his older brother ran for president, Billy Carter found himself thrust into the national spotlight and
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There’s so much terrific work out right now from nineteenth-century American historians on Juneteenth, I’m not even sure where to begin. Annette Gordon Reed’s book On Juneteenth is a terrific (and short) read, but if you’re looking for something even more recent try Tiya Miles’ piece
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Before he became one of the most outspoken critics of the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg — who just passed away at the age of 92 — was one of its architects. In 1965, a half decade before he leaked the Pentagon Papers and inspired a furious Richard Nixon to exact revenge through
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Sorry to be a little late with this — as a historian, I’m not very good with dates — but yesterday actually marked the 80th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision, the so-called “flag salute case” of West Virginia v. Barnette (1943). In truth, the decision was the second “flag
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