State of the Union Address: The Constitution and Politics
President Joe Biden’s delivery of what has become the annual State of the Union Address fulfilled one of the few constitutional...
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HumanitiesND
Feb 9, 20234 min read
The First Amendment and Free Speech on Campus
The difficulties that college and university administrators from California to Massachusetts have faced over the past 30 years in...
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HumanitiesND
Jan 26, 20234 min read
The Constitution and Government Classification of Secrets
Questions surrounding news that President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence have disclosed possession of classified...
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HumanitiesND
Jan 25, 20234 min read
Tinker v. Des Moines: Anchoring Students’ Free Speech Rights
Half a century later, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) remains the Supreme Court’s authoritative ruling...
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HumanitiesND
Jan 25, 20234 min read
Buck v. Bell: The Supreme Court Upholds Forced Sterilization
In a tragic, landmark ruling of historic dimensions, the Supreme Court, in 1927, in an opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes,...
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HumanitiesND
Jan 25, 20234 min read
Powell v. McCormack: Confining Congress to the Constitution
Congressman-Elect, Ron Santos’s (R-NY) sweeping distortions of his personal and professional biography has triggered nationwide calls for...
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HumanitiesND
Jan 5, 20234 min read
At Year’s End: A Duty to Protect our Constitutional Democracy
In this season of peace, remembrance and celebration, we are beckoned by the ghosts of 1776 and 1787 to recall the historic work of this...
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HumanitiesND
Dec 27, 20224 min read
Constitutionally Speaking, A Former President May Be Prosecuted
It is unclear if the Department of Justice will charge former President Donald Trump with four crimes referred by the January 6...
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HumanitiesND
Nov 28, 20224 min read
Near v. Minnesota: Bulwark of Press Freedom
At this juncture in American history, when the citizenry seems to require frequent reminders of the landmark decisions and actions that...
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HumanitiesND
Nov 17, 20224 min read
Blaisdell: Constitutional Flexibility in the Face of Crisis
The enormous pressures and hardships—financial, medical and psychological-- inflicted on the citizenry by the Great Depression required...
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HumanitiesND
Nov 17, 20224 min read
Before the Court: The Future of National Unity
Two hundred years ago, in the landmark case of Cohens v. Virginia (1821), the future of our Constitution, the aspirations of national...
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HumanitiesND
Oct 27, 20224 min read
Presidents and Former Presidents are Subject to Subpoenas
The 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr, lost in the mists of early American legal history stirs, at most, only feint recollections among...
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HumanitiesND
Oct 20, 20224 min read
“Equal Protection: Serving Sons and Daughters”
In 1996, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark opinion in United States v. Virginia that exalted women’s rights under the Equal...
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HumanitiesND
Oct 12, 20224 min read
“Muller v. Oregon: Protection for Women in the Workplace”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s long, tortured road to recognizing women’s constitutional rights in the late 20th Century was preceded by...
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HumanitiesND
Oct 6, 20224 min read
“Supreme Court in 1873: Women Unfit to Practice Law”
Not every landmark Supreme Court decision champions the rights of Americans or limits governmental power in a manner that preserves and...
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HumanitiesND
Sep 28, 20223 min read
U.S. v. Smith: No Presidential Power to Initiate War
American legal history firmly rejects the view advanced by some commentators and politicians that the president, not Congress, may decide...
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HumanitiesND
Sep 23, 20224 min read
A Little-Known Landmark Ruling of Historic Dimensions
Little v. Barreme, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1804, may be among the least familiar landmark rulings ever rendered, but it...
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HumanitiesND
Sep 15, 20224 min read
The Court Protects the American Labor Movement
In a stunning decision on April 12, 1937, with enormous constitutional, economic and societal importance, the U.S. Supreme Court, in...
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HumanitiesND
Sep 6, 20224 min read
The Court, the Minimum Wage Ruling and the Holy Ghost
The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), set against the backdrop of President Franklin D....
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HumanitiesND
Sep 6, 20223 min read
Shelley v. Kraemer: “My Little Soul is Overjoyed”
In 1947, in the context of changing attitudes about race and a historic shift in federal policy on the practice of segregation in...
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