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Articles on Thurgood Marshall

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The Supreme Court issued a decision on June 29, 2023, that ends affirmative action in college admissions. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

A 2003 Supreme Court decision upholding affirmative action planted the seeds of its overturning, as justices then and now thought racism an easily solved problem

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.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, speaking during her confirmation hearing on March 22, 2022, would be the first Black woman to serve on the court. Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court hearing is a flashback to how race and crime featured during Thurgood Marshall’s 1967 hearings

55 years after Thurgood Marshall testified during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearings show race and crime continue to drive questions about a Black jurist.
Jill Biden holds the Bible as Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2021. Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP

From Biden’s giant Bible to Christian flags waved by rioters, ‘religion’ means different things to different people and different eras

From the oath-taking on the Bible during the presidential swearing-in ceremony to the ‘awe’ and ‘restraint’ of the early Christian world, the meaning of ‘religion’ has gone through a long journey.
Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 1958. Marshall, the head of the NAACP’s legal arm who argued part of the case, went on to become the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice. AP

The Brown v. Board of Education case didn’t start how you think it did

While the Brown vs. Board of Education case is often celebrated for ordering school desegregation, history shows many black people in the city where the case began opposed integrated schools.
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg paying a courtesy call on Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., in June 1993, before her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. AP/Marcy Nighswander

Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court

Before she became a Supreme Court justice, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work as an attorney in the 1970s changed the court’s approach to women’s rights and how we think about women – and men.
The “engineer” of civil rights legal victories law2.umkc.edu

Black leaders matter

The civil rights movement produced many different types of leaders. Thurgood Marshall, argued successfully before the Supreme Court that racial segregation laws violated the US Constitution. Diane Nash…

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