Lawyers submitting briefs to the Supreme Court in the Trump Colorado ballot case must file a ‘certificate of word count.’ Why? As one judge put it, lawyers’ briefs are ‘too long, too long, too long.’
The Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate affirmative action programs sent shock waves across the US and is expected to impact racial diversity throughout society.
Travis Knoll, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
President Lyndon Johnson’s commencement address at Howard University in 1965 offered a compelling argument on the need for affirmative action. His policies have been challenged ever since.
Throughout Thomas’ tenure on the court, he has pushed the Supreme Court to replace Marshall’s vision with one more amenable to the powerful than the powerless.
Most Americans believe that racial inequality is a significant problem. They also believe that affirmative action programs aimed at reducing those inequalities are a problematic tool.
The Respect for Marriage Act provides exemptions for religious groups, excludes people with disabilities – and could still lead to state-level discrimination laws.
Black conservative Clarence Thomas’ improbable rise as a powerful US Supreme Court justice today was unimaginable during his controversial confirmation hearings in 1991.
Major Supreme Court decisions and reversals last term are leaving some people, including this scholar on constitutional politics, wondering – what’s going on with the court?
The combination of crumbling democratic norms in the U.S. Supreme Court appointments process and an ideological court out of step with mainstream America raises questions of how it could be reformed.
The justices who decided to overturn the abortion rights precedent of Roe v. Wade explained their reasoning, and signaled other precedents could be reversed as well.
Unlike in most countries, US Supreme Court justices enjoy life tenure. Some legal scholars believe that centuries-old custom, meant to protect judicial independence, no longer serves the public.
A 6-3 conservative court will hear a broader range of controversial cases, shift interpretations of individual rights and put more pressure on local democracy to make policy decisions.
For more than half a century, service members who got hurt while on active duty but not in combat – like being hit by a jeep while on base – could never sue for damages. That’s now changed – a bit.