A political cartoon of Charles Guiteau holding a pistol and a sign that reads "An Office or Your Life."

Why Are Presidential Assassins Such Sad Sacks?

What would-be killers of the US commander in chief have in common is that they aren’t fervent ideologues; they’re outcasts.
A homeless man eating a meal in a park.

Good Deeds Unpunished

American law should protect the right of individuals to engage in charitable acts.
President Ronald Reagan, pictured waving to a crowd shortly before John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate him on March 30, 1981.

The History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, From Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.
A man tacks applications to Princeton University on a bulletin board
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The Rise of the College Application Essay

The essay component of American college applications has a long history, but its purpose has changed over time.
Charles Francis Phillips and Owen Cattell, two Columbia University students, seated.

In 1917, Columbia’s Clampdown Remade the Antiwar Movement

When police raided Columbia University in May, commentators drew parallels to the 1968. But the school’s hostility to the antiwar movement traces back to 1917.
White men strapping a Black man into an electric chair.
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Matters of Life and Death

Systemic racism and capital punishment have long been intertwined in Virginia, the South, and the nation.
A sign reading "Love Asheville, Y'all Means All!" with a rainbow heart in the background.

Y’all Means All: Past and Present LGBTQ+ Rights in the South

Despite an unwelcoming political climate and a dearth of LGBTQ+ protections, LGBTQ+ Southerners have persisted.
President Calvin Coolidge raising his hand behind a podium to be sworn into office.
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Behind America’s First Comprehensive Federal Immigration Law

Even as the primary targets of immigration restrictionism have shifted, the consequences for immigrants remain profoundly shaped by the system created in 1924.
Chief Justice John Roberts attending the State of the Union.

J. Roberts et al. v. A. Lincoln

As the Supreme Court invents a law to negate all others, Chief Justice John Roberts now ranks just below Roger Taney.
Freedom School students sitting in a circle on the ground.
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60 Years Later, Freedom Schools Are Still Radical—and Necessary

The Freedom Schools curriculums developed in 1964 remain urgently needed, especially in our era of book bans and backlash.
Mississippi Freedom Summer activists and contact list.

What the Civil Rights Act Really Meant

An overlooked effect of the legislation, passed 60 years ago this week, was its powerful message of hope for Black Americans.
Two images: Lajpat Rai (left) and W.E.B. Du Bois (right).
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Black Freedom and Indian Independence

Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Has Murdered the Constitution

America’s founding document is now an all-but-meaningless scrap of paper. Happy Fourth!
Judge Learned Hand.

Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty

Eighty years ago, Americans embraced a new definition of their faith: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”
Donald Trump walking onstage, next to four American flags.

‘The Dred Scott of Our Time’

The Supreme Court has invested the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers, repudiating the foundational principle of the rule of law.
"Just Say No" memorabilia at the Reagan Presidential Library.

White Suburbs and Drug Wars

To understand the racism of the drug war, we must look to the ways policymakers sought to protect white suburban youth.
Exterior of Attica Correctional Facility.

The “Long Attica Revolt”

The resistance inside prisons is an integral part of the struggle against white supremacy and for Black liberation beyond the walls.
Supreme Court building.
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Supreme Court Opinions Don't Have to Be the Final Word

The Supreme Court doesn't have the last word; the people do. How attorneys pushed back on the flawed 1987 McCleskey decision.
Scale with hundred-dollar bills weighing down one side.

Markets and the Law

Neoliberalism isn’t just a set of economic precepts—it’s also an architecture of laws passed to reinforce those precepts. Those laws must be changed.
WTO protestors in 1999.

How Activists Across the Pacific Northwest Planned the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests

Looking back on the environmentalist and anti-globalization movements of the 1990s.
President Bill Clinton with then-Sen. Biden on Sept. 13, 1994, during a signing ceremony for the crime bill on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Biggest Myth About the 1994 Crime Bill Still Haunts Joe Biden. It Shouldn’t.

The law is routinely blamed for a very real problem it had nothing to do with.
Three photographs of Mother Jones with each becoming less pixelated until the final image is clear.

America’s Best Made-Up Person

On the transformation of Mary Harris into Mother Jones.
Black student looking up at a school bus full of white children.

The Boston ‘Busing Crisis’ Was Never About Busing

Five decades after the desegregation effort, a civil-rights scholar questions its framing.
Demonstrators holding signs at George Floyd protest in NYC, 2020.

Americans Used to Unite Over Tragic Events − and Now Are Divided By Them

Tragedy seldom unifies Americans today.
Anti-death penalty protesters standing outside the Supreme Court.

The Hollowing of the Eighth Amendment

The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has been quietly rolling back a longstanding consensus over cruel and unusual punishment.
Cover of "Suffrage Song" on left, featuring three suffragists. On right, cartoonist Caitlin Cass.

This Cartoonist Wants to Tell the Complicated History of Women’s Voting Rights

A new graphic book unpacks the role that some White women played in suppressing voting rights for all — and the lessons today in the fight for universal ballot access.
Children protesting before the Supreme Court with a sign that reads "We Love School Choice."

The Post-Brown Realignment and the Structure of Partitioned Publics

Public schools are crucial infrastructures of the reproduction of social inequality and the US carceral state.
A gavel smashing a wooden house.

The Constitutional Case Against Exclusionary Zoning

America is suffering from a severe housing shortage. A crucial tool may lie in the Constitution.
“Scene Representing the Suffering of Animals in a Railroad Stable” in the 1873 annual report of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

How the Civil War Spurred The Animal Welfare Movement

The story of American abolitionists who, after Emancipation, pivoted from antislavery campaigns to animal welfare advocacy.
Edward Blum superimposed on the Supreme Court building.

The People Who Dismantled Affirmative Action Have a New Strategy to Crush Racial Justice

In throwing up new roadblocks to the use of private money to redress racial and economic inequality, the Fearless Fund ruling is antihistorical.