After 227 years of history, how should we judge the United States Supreme Court? All of my years of studying, teaching, and practicing constitutional law have convinced me that the Supreme Court has rarely lived up to lofty expectations and far more often has upheld discrimination and even egregious violations of basic liberties. My […]

Read more

  Germany, 1918: “A scraggly band of child rebels, we met secretly in attics … We were taught by men who claimed they were deserters from the navy to hate the rich, to tell the poor they must rise in a body and fight …” U.S.A., 2014: “I know a lot of people think that […]

Read more

  As America went to the polls in the fall of 2008, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and the agenda of his Republican party loomed large. The image of Lincoln as a young lawyer was invoked on a snowy afternoon as a young senator declared his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois: “He tells us that […]

Read more

  Redefining the Dream: The Case for Marriage Equality is David Boies and Ted Olson’s attempt to cast themselves as the driving force behind legalizing gay marriage. The pair write that they hoped their challenge to California’s Proposition 8 would “change the course of history” and serve as a “critical step in the process of […]

Read more

  It is hard to remain dry-eyed reading Elizabeth Warren’s description of the pivotal moment that she considers the day she grew up. She was 12, watching her mother rubbing tissue over a tear-drenched face, then stuffing herself into the only good dress she had, struggling to get the dress “across her belly, and pulled […]

Read more