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Supreme Court sign proclaims "equal justice under law."

What Happens If Trump Defies the Courts

Do judges have the power to enforce their rulings if the executive branch refuses to comply?
by Isaac Chotiner, Cristina Rodriguez via The New Yorker on February 11, 2025
A handwritten envelope for court documents in "The United States v. Thomas Chittenden."

Guilty as Charged

Convicting Vermont’s first governor.
by Gary Shattuck via Journal of the American Revolution on September 26, 2024
Illustration of catcher Buck Ewing of the New York Giants

Baseball's Reserve Clause and the "Antitrust Exemption"

The controversy between players and owners frequently brought baseball into the federal courts between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.
by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on May 18, 2022
Profile sketch of a court justice, 18th century (National Parks Service)

A Brief History of Circuit Riding

The study of circuit riding helps to highlight the importance of the lower federal courts in American legal history.
by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on October 8, 2020
Deportees walk in a line while coordinators stand nearby in reflective yellow vests.

The Sordid History of Offshoring Migrants

Trump is only the latest to embrace a costly and immoral tactic.
by David Scott FitzGerald via Foreign Affairs on July 10, 2025
Alleged enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, New Jersey, 1918.

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on April 25, 2025
Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.
by Sherrilyn Ifill via Sherrilyn's Newsletter on March 24, 2025
Donald Trump with a crown on his head.

Donald Trump Is Trying to Take American Law Back to 1641

Understand that if Trump succeeds the result will not be the harmless resurrection of a quaint jurisprudential artifact.
by Frank O. Bowman III via Slate on February 26, 2025
Strom Thurmond speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Ed Carnes' confirmation to the bench.

The Fight for Justice Starts with Blocking Judges Who Are “Tough on Crime”

The story of how Ed Carnes became a judge offers crucial lessons for those who hope to unwind the policies of mass incarceration.
by Robert L. Tsai via Public Books on November 13, 2024
Don Baker, holding sign that says "March On Washington October 14, 1979" with Texas silhouette.

The Dallas Teacher, Navy Vet, and Devout Christian Who Fought to Overturn Texas’s Sodomy Law

Unlikely activist Don Baker scored a landmark win for gay rights in Texas 42 years ago this week.
by Bruce Selcraig via Texas Monthly on August 14, 2024
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Three demonstrators hold proabortion signs outside the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Tex. (David Erickson/AP)
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Abortion Pill Decision Reveals How the Debate Has Changed Since Dobbs

The medication abortion decision by a federal judge in Texas focused on the rights of fetuses and the interests of doctors — not the rights of women.
by Felicia Kornbluh via Made By History on April 10, 2023
Harold "Red" Grange, one of the biggest stars of the early NFL.

NFL Television Broadcasting and the Federal Courts

The NFL's control over entertainment.
by Jake Kobrick via Federal Judicial Center on January 24, 2023
Photo of the Supreme Court Building

The Supreme Court Gets a Chance to Revisit America’s Imperialist Past

A trio of American Samoan plaintiffs are asking the high court to end their status as second-class citizens.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on September 19, 2022
US Airforce nurses treating patients.

The Better Roe: The Case of Struck v. Secretary of Defense

When Susan Struck fought being discharged for pregnancy from the US Air Force, it brought the right to choose into a different light.
by Kara Dixon Vuic via Perspectives on History on August 10, 2022
Michikinikwa ("Little Turtle") statue by Douglas Hyde.

Native Prohibition in the Federal Courts

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.
by Winston Bowman via Federal Judicial Center on March 1, 2022
The Fuller Court

Whose Side Is the Supreme Court On?

The Supreme Court and the pursuit of racial equality.
by Randall Kennedy via The Nation on August 9, 2021
Black students from West Charlotte High School leave the school bus
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How White Americans’ Refusal to Accept Busing Has Kept Schools Segregated

The Supreme Court has refused to force White Americans to confront history.
by Matthew D. Lassiter via Made By History on April 20, 2021
Illustration of a gavel by Vahram Muradyan

Why Do Americans Have So Few Rights?

How we came to rely on the courts, instead of the democratic process, for justice.
by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on March 9, 2021

The Firsts

The children who desegregated America.
by Adam Harris, Rebecca Rosen via The Atlantic on September 29, 2020

The Great Liberal Reckoning Has Begun

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg concludes an era of faith in courts as partners in the fight for progress and equality.
by Alan Z. Rozenshtein via The Atlantic on September 22, 2020

We Saw Nuns Kill Children: The Ghosts of St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage

Millions of American children were placed in orphanages. Some didn’t make it out alive.
by Christine Kenneally via BuzzFeed News on August 27, 2018

The Big, Nearly 200-Year-Old Legal Issue at The Heart of the Dakota Access Pipeline Fight

Tribal sovereignty is a concept that even some of the protesters may not be familiar with. But it's important.
by German Lopez via Vox on March 13, 2017

When Presidents Think About Defying the Courts

When President Trump contemplates violating court orders, he joins a longer list of presidents.
by Jeff Shesol via The New Yorker on February 9, 2017
A row of California National Guardsmen stand atop a top step in riot gear.

Trump’s Deportation Frenzy Echoes the Fugitive Slave Hunts of the 1850s

Trump's crackdown on immigrants bears alarming parallels to the fugitive slave obsessions of the pre-Civil War South.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on June 11, 2025
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Who Controls the Purse? Presidential Power and the Fight Over Spending

Trump is reviving a controversial budget tactic, putting a Nixon-era fight over presidential power and congressional authority back in the headlines.
by Sarah Weiser via Retro Report on May 23, 2025
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2025
Chief Justices of the Supreme Court attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol on March 4, 2025, in Washington, DC.

The Courts Won’t Save Us

Rather than resisting authoritarianism, the courts have enabled Trump’s rise.
by Samuel Moyn, Daniel Bessner via Jacobin on April 30, 2025
The words "the world you were born in no longer exists" covering Trump's eyes.

The Present Crisis and the End of the Long '90s

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.
by Samantha Hancox-Li via Liberal Currents on April 24, 2025
A crowd of Black children walking into school.

How Delayed Desegregation Deprived Black Children of Their Right to Education

On the ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America throughout the 1960s.
by Noliwe Rooks via Literary Hub on March 19, 2025
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