Justice

Fifty years on, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" remains a problematic text for environmental activists, who are inclined to endorse its violent tendencies.

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.

Considering a novel as a whole, rather than as the sum of its parts, was an approach favored by mid-20th-century literary critics. It was also useful for fighting book bans.

A century ago, the Court recognized the essential right of parents to direct the education of their children.

Birthright citizenship under attack.

To defend the Trump Administration, the Court ignored long-standing precedent barring Presidents from firing independent-agency heads at will.

Orisanmi Burton’s "Tip of the Spear" uncovers the obscured and radical demands of the inmates who staged the 1971 prison uprising—a world without prisons.

A new documentary revisits a pivotal week at Gallaudet University in 1988.

He challenged the violence of US power, abroad and at home. His radical internationalism, from Congo to Palestine, speaks to our moment.

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.

His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Act made way for investigations of racially motivated killings. The federal agency enforcing it is in disarray.

A graphic episode from "Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me."

A warning for us all about history repeating itself.

Police brutality and corruption are painful realities. So are officers who die performing their duty. But the memorial in Washington fails to distinguish them.

Half a century ago the civil rights movement’s effort to carry the campaign for school desegregation from the South to the urban North ended in failure.

RFK’s call for “wellness farms” revives a grim legacy of forced labor, racial injustice, and eugenics disguised as mental health reform.

The very features that made the LAPD appear more professional also expanded its reach and capacity for violence.

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.

She translated Black freedom movements' ideals into forms that children could enjoy and grasp, nurturing their political consciousness through music-making.

Fifty years after the Vietnam War’s end, lessons from the peace movement on mobilizing resistance.

If the justices take up a case on Virginia’s felon disenfranchisement law, they’ll be burrowing back to Reconstruction-era jurisprudence.

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone says we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, President FDR heard arguments from the civil rights leaders of the era for the desegregation of the military.

Trump is relying on a 1798 law with a bad history.

Chief Justice John Roberts called it “obvious” that the infamous decision has “no place in law under the Constitution.” Recent events suggest otherwise.

The birth of the sanctuary movement some 45 years ago can teach us a lot about how to respond to today’s attacks on immigrants.