Justice

If judges are going to use history as their guide, they should probably try to get the history right.

The presence of Federalist judges frustrated Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party, bring justice Samuel Chase under fire.

Once considered a relic of moral panics past, the 1873 law criminalized sending "obscene, lewd or lascivious" materials through the mail.

A new lawsuit builds on 50 years of history in environmental activism.

The conservative backlash to the civil-rights era began immediately — and now it’s nearly complete.

The government responded with ruthless persecution — just one egregious example in the NSA’s long, sordid history of fiercely guarding its secrecy.

A massive protest by Mexican American high school students was a milestone in a movement for Chicano rights.

Witness to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

How college basketball coach Pat Summitt transformed women's sports.

The argument made recently by Kim Forde-Mazrui may not be in good faith, but it does raise important questions about the meaning of the Constitution.

On the mobility controls faced by refugees, and who had the right to remain in American cities and states in the Early Republic.

The unity of two long-neglected communities during trying times is a reminder of what we desperately need in Los Angeles.

The Supreme Court Justice's defense of Plessy v. Ferguson in a 1993 memo continues to influence the court's interpretation of the 14th amendment.

The war marked a sea change in how black men viewed their own citizenship.

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.

More than 50 years after the Stonewall uprising marked the birth of a movement for LGBTQ+ rights, transgender activists continue to push for inclusion.

Decades ago, labor protests, picketing and strikes often led to violent confrontations between activists and police, although that almost never happens today.

Prisoners not only supported the war effort in surprising ways during World War II, they fought and died in it.

The armed forces continue to grapple with integrating women into an institution historically designed for men.

A new biography of King emerges at a "critical juncture" for his legacy.

The fear that overtook us that day in 1988 was unfamiliar to most Americans. Now all too many know how it feels.

The members of the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project scrutinize official records not only for what they reveal, but also for what they omit.

Library book bans are fueling national fights and a new Florida lawsuit. But only one case has come before the Supreme Court: Island Trees v. Pico.

The history of Sephardic Jews challenges our ideas about race in America.

The 1954 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, declared that “separate but equal” has no place in education.

But the backstory was all-American.

For over 20 years, Dr. Albert Kligman experimented on incarcerated men at Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison. Those who profited have yet to redress the harm.

Abortion rights in the US were won in the 1970s thanks to militant feminist groups. As those rights are repealed, the fight must return to the streets.

Native Americans demand accountability for a federal policy that aimed to erase Indigenous culture.

A revered Supreme Court ruling protected the robust debate vital to democracy—but made it harder to constrain misinformation. Can we do better?