Justice

The author's half-forgotten masterpiece, Benito Cereno, provides fascinating insight into issues of slavery, freedom, individualism—and Islamophobia.

In the 1970s, Ronald Reagan villainized a Chicago woman for bilking the government. Her other sins were far worse.

Six days after 9/11, the FBI raided a Detroit sleeper cell. But, despite a celebrated conviction, there was one problem — they’d gotten it wrong.

How Edith Windsor fell in love, got married, and won a landmark case for gay marriage.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's solo dissent from an affirmative action case was inspired by a footnote.

Exploring the origins and impacts of the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," on that event's 50th anniversary.

How the Supreme Court got it wrong.

Two court cases that defined and changed the nature of personhood.

The Civil Rights movement led the way, soon followed by anti-war protests and activism for women’s issues and gay rights.

Despite her path-braking work as a litigator before the Court, she doesn't believe that large-scale social change should come from the courts.

A documentary website that tells the story of how young activists united with local people in the Deep South to build a grassroots movement that transformed the nation.

Thaddeus Stevens was a fearsome reformer who never backed down from a fight.

On the spectacular act of terrorism that took place in Manhattan a century ago.

The date of Occupy's strike has ties to the eight-hour day movement, immigrant workers and American anarchism.

One nation, under the gun.

On revolution and violence.

Why do we lock up so many people?

In 1932, twenty-thousand unemployed WWI veterans descended on Washington, DC to demand better treatment from the federal government.

An unlikely alliance in antebellum America.

Clarence Darrow’s unfinished work.

During the 1898-1904 pox epidemic, public health officials and policemen forced thousands of Americans to be vaccinated against their will.

The greatest unsolved murders in Los Angeles' history, bloodier than the Black Dahlia, more vicious than the hit on Bugsy Siegel, occurred on a night in 1871.

David Garland makes a powerful argument that will persuade many readers that the death penalty is unwise and unjustified.

Is there still a civil rights movement?

Reconsidering Septima Clark’s life challenges many of our ideas about the Civil Rights Movement and women's roles in it.

The Communist Party fought for racial equality in the South, specifically Alabama, where segregation was most oppressive.

The Ludlow massacre revisited.

During the half-century between Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, class warfare in the United States was always robust, usually ferocious, and often homicidal.

A century ago, Springfield, Illinois, descended into a two-day spasm of racial violence and mayhem that still has the power to shock.

Was the 2008 Heller decision a victory for originalism or a living Constitution?