The meaning of the Constitution’s preamble, which begins with the words ‘We the People,’ has evolved over time as voting rights have expanded.
Ottawa County Commissioners Joe Moss, left, and Sylvia Rhodea ran for the positions vowing they would ‘thwart tyranny’ in the community.
Evan Cobb for The Washington Post via Getty Images
By declaring a ‘constitutional county,’ local leaders assert they are creating a refuge from anti- or unconstitutional actions undertaken by an overzealous state or federal authority.
Thurgood Marshall, left, had a very different view of the purpose of the Supreme Court than his successor, Clarence Thomas.
U.S. Supreme Court via Wikimedia Commons
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.
Satire can be dangerous.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
A satirist posted a parody of a police Facebook page. He was arrested and jailed for four days. How far do free speech protections extend when it comes to satire about government?
Scott Jenkins, sheriff of Culpeper County, Va., is one of a large number of so-called ‘constitutional sheriffs’ in the U.S.
Eva Hambach/AFP via Getty Images
A significant number of county sheriffs across the US have a particular – and false – view of their role in defending Americans’ constitutional rights.
Abortion rights battles look set to go from the Supreme Court to statehouses.
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
If the Supreme Court guts landmark rulings that established a constitutional right to abortion, the legal struggle will shift to statehouses and state courtrooms.
Without a formal constitution, Israelis disagree on such basic issues as whether Israel is a Jewish state.
Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images
Brendan Szendro, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Governed by a changeable body of ‘basic laws,’ Israel never settled basic questions like the rights of religious minorities. These destabilizing issues will continue to fester under a new government.
Body camera footage shows a Virginia police officer pepper-spraying a Black U.S. Army officer during a traffic stop in December 2020.
Windsor Police via AP
Police officers who kill, injure or violate the rights of citizens are often not held accountable, even in civil court – because in most cases, they can’t be sued for official acts.
In dismissing the youth climate case, the court acknowledged that climate change is serious, but not serious enough to reconsider the reach of the constitution.
The old joke says you can tell a politician is lying if his lips are moving.
Alexander_P/Shutterstock.com
When a person or agency backed by the power and resources of the government tells a lie, it sometimes causes harm that only the government can inflict.
A 2012 training session between two New York police officers demonstrated a way stop-and-frisk encounters could be handled.
AP Photo/Colleen Long
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg apologized for his city’s ‘stop-and-frisk’ police strategy. Two criminologists argue it isn’t necessarily inherently racist – though New York’s program was.
Australian federal police entering the Australian Broadcast Company headquarters on June 5, 2019.
A.B.C. screenshot from videotape
An American media scholar studying in Australia looks at the protections offered by the two countries for investigative reporting, raising crucial questions about journalism’s role in democracy.
The nation’s founders saw education as key to self-rule.
Joseph Sohm/www.shutterstock.com
Americans enjoy a right to free speech, and some public figures really exercise that right. The Constitution might not protect them the way they think it does, though.
Most South Africans are dependent on unaffordable mobile data to access the Internet.
Indra de Lanerolle
South Africa’s transition to democracy was based on the values of inclusive politics, reconciliation, human rights and constitutionalism. Twenty-two years on, how has the country fared?
What are free speech rights of students when they are off-campus?
Michael Coghlan