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Race And The Supreme Court
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Book Synopsis Justice Deferred by : Orville Vernon Burton
Download or read book Justice Deferred written by Orville Vernon Burton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive accounting of the U.S. Supreme CourtÕs race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a guarantor of fair trials, and safeguarded free speech and the vote. But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice. From the Cherokee Trail of Tears to Brown v. Board of Education to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the CourtÕs race recordÑa legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. For nearly a century, the Court ensured that the nineteenth-century Reconstruction amendments would not truly free and enfranchise African Americans. And the twenty-first century has seen a steady erosion of commitments to enforcing hard-won rights. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the CourtÕs race jurisprudence. Addressing nearly two hundred cases involving AmericaÕs racial minorities, the authors probe the parties involved, the justicesÕ reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings. We learn of heroes such as Thurgood Marshall; villains, including Roger Taney; and enigmas like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Hugo Black. Much of the fragility of civil rights in America is due to the Supreme Court, but as this sweeping history also reminds us, the justices still have the power to make good on the countryÕs promise of equal rights for all.
Book Synopsis The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights by : Abraham L. Davis
Download or read book The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights written by Abraham L. Davis and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 1995-07-25 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a well-rounded presentation of the constitution and evolution of civil rights in the United States, this book will be useful for students and academics with an interest in civil rights, race and the law. Abraham L Davis and Barbara Luck Graham's purpose is: to give an overview of the Supreme Court and its rulings with regard to issues of equality and civil rights; to bring law, political science and history into the discussion of civil rights and the Supreme Court; to incorporate the politically disadvantaged and the human component into the discussion; to stimulate discussion among students; and to provide a text that cultivates competence in reading actual Supreme Court cases.
Book Synopsis On Account of Race by : Lawrence Goldstone
Download or read book On Account of Race written by Lawrence Goldstone and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award–winning constitutional law historian examines case–based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.
Book Synopsis Race Against the Court by : Girardeau A. Spann
Download or read book Race Against the Court written by Girardeau A. Spann and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1994-02-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Must reading for anyone who seeks a better understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court's role in race relations policy." —Choice "Beware! Those committed to the Supreme Court as the ultimate defender of minority rights should not read Race Against the Court. Through a systematic peeling away of antimajoritarian myth, Spann reveals why the measure of relief the Court grants victims of racial injustice is determined less by the character of harm suffered by blacks than the degree of disadvantage the relief sought will impose on whites. A truly pathbreaking work." —Derrick Bell As persuasive as it is bold. Race Against The Court stands as a necessary warning to a generation of progressives who have come to depend on the Supreme Court of the perils of such dependency. It joins with Bruce Ackerman's We, the People and John Brigham's Cult of the Court as the best in contemporary work on the Supreme Court. —Austin Sarat, William Nelson,Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College The controversies surrounding the nominations, confirmations, and rejections of recent Supreme Court justices, and the increasingly conservative nature of the Court, have focused attention on the Supreme Court as never before. Although the Supreme Court is commonly understood to be the guardian of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, Race Against The Court argues that the Court has never successfully performed this function. Rather the actual function of the Court has been to perpetuate the subordination of racial minorities by operating as an undetected agent of majoritarian preferences in the political preferences. In this provocative, controversial, and timely work, Girardeau Spann illustrates how the selection process for Supreme Court justices ensures that they will share the political preferences of the elite majority that runs the nation. Customary safeguards that are designed to protect the judicial process from majoritarian predispositions, Spann contends, cannot successfully insulate judicial decisionmaking from the pervasive societal pressures that exist to discount racial minority interests. The case most often cited as the icon of Court sensitivity to minority rights, Brown v. Board of Education, has more recently served to lull minorities into believing that efforts at political self-determination are futile, fostering a seductive dependence and overreliance on the Court as the caretaker of minority rights. Race Against The Court demonstrates how the Court has centralized the law of affirmative action in a way that stymies minority efforts for meaningful political and economic gain and how it has legitimated the legal status quo in a way that causes minorities never even to question the inevitability of their subordinate social status. Spann contends that racial minorities would be better off seeking to advance their interests in the pluralist political process and proposes a novel strategy for minorities to pursue in order to extricate themselves from the seemingly inescapable grasp of Supreme Court protection. Certain to generate lively, heated debate, Race Against The Court exposes the veiled majoritarianism of the Supreme Court and the dangers of allowing the Court to formulate our national racial policy.
Book Synopsis “Race,” Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada by : James W. St. G. Walker
Download or read book “Race,” Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada written by James W. St. G. Walker and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 1997-10-27 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on four cases relating to race between 1914 and 1955, Walker (history, U. of Waterloo) explores the role of the Canadian Supreme Court and the law in racializing Canadian society. He demonstrates that the justices were expressing the prevailing common sense in their legal decisions, and argues that the law has created the conditions for the country's chronic racism. He projects past and current trends into the future. Co-published by the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. Canadian card order number: C97-931762-2. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Book Synopsis Critical Race Judgments by : Bennett Capers
Download or read book Critical Race Judgments written by Bennett Capers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By re-writing US Supreme Court opinions that implicate critical dimensions of racial justice, Critical Race Judgments demonstrates that it's possible to be judge and a critical race theorist. Specific issues covered in these cases include the death penalty, employment, voting, policing, education, the environment, justice, housing, immigration, sexual orientation, segregation, and mass incarceration. While some rewritten cases – Plessy v. Ferguson (which constitutionalized Jim Crow) and Korematsu v. United States (which constitutionalized internment) – originally focused on race, many of the rewritten opinions – Lawrence v. Texas (which constitutionalized sodomy laws) and Roe v. Wade (which constitutionalized a woman's right to choose) – are used to incorporate racial justice principles in novel and important ways. This work is essential for everyone who needs to understand why critical race theory must be deployed in constitutional law to uphold and advance racial justice principles that are foundational to US democracy.
Book Synopsis The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights by : Abraham L. Davis
Download or read book The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights written by Abraham L. Davis and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1995-07-25 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the first law textbook to provide a comprehensive examination of the Supreme Court's institutional commitment to equality over a time span of more than 190 years. Filling the void of literature in this area, this long-awaited volume incorporates information from the disciplines of law, political science, and history to provide the student with a thorough analysis of race and law from the perspective of politically disadvantaged groups. Carefully selected cases stimulate classroom discussion and at the same time cultivate competence in reading actual Supreme Court rulings. Accessible and flexible, this textbook affords professors and instructors an opportunity to pick and choose from the essays and cases for each historical period. The authors instill in students a deeper appreciation of the multicultural component of ongoing struggles for equality within the American context. Written specifically for undergraduate, graduate, and law school courses that emphasize civil rights/race and the law, The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights stands alone as an outstanding textbook.
Book Synopsis Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power by : Toni Morrison
Download or read book Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power written by Toni Morrison and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 1992-10-06 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was perhaps the most wretchedly aspersive race and gender scandal of recent times: the dramatic testimony of Anita Hill at the Senate hearings on the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Justice. Yet even as the televised proceedings shocked and galvanized viewers not only in this country but the world over, they cast a long shadow on essential issues that define America. In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison contributes an introduction and brings together eighteen provocative essays, all but one written especially for this book, by prominent and distinguished academicians—Black and white, male and female. These writings powerfully elucidate not only the racial and sexual but also the historical, political, cultural, legal, psychological, and linguistic aspects of a signal and revelatory moment in American history. With contributions by: Homi K. Bhabha, Margaret A. Burnham, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Paula Giddings, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Claudia Brodsky Lacour, Wahneema Lubiano, Manning Marable, Nellie Y. McKay, Toni Morrison, Nell Irvin Painter, Gayle Pemberton, Andrew Ross, Christine Stansell, Carol M. Swain, Michael Thelwell, Kendall Thomas, Cornel West, Patricia J. Williams
Book Synopsis On Account of Race by : Lawrence Goldstone
Download or read book On Account of Race written by Lawrence Goldstone and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award–winning constitutional law historian examines case–based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.
Book Synopsis Race Law by : F. Michael Higginbotham
Download or read book Race Law written by F. Michael Higginbotham and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maintaining the easily readable style and tightly organized format of the first and second editions, the third edition of Race Law provides an in-depth examination of the issue of race in the American Legal process from the formation of the United States Constitution in 1787 to the present. In this book, Higginbotham combines a unique blend of moderately edited original source materials and scholarly analysis including historical background information, legislation, state and federal court decisions, commentary, biographical information, and questions. Fully revised and updated, the third edition offers important new material on race classification, reconstruction, reparations, citizenship, criminal justice, employment discrimination, affirmative action, and Supreme Court appointments. Higginbotham also explores the values of the individuals in power and probes how these values affected their choice of options. Race Law is divided into six parts: Analysis and Framework; Slavery; Reconstruction, Citizenship, and Sovereignty; Segregation; Attempted Eradication of Inequality; and Supreme Court Confirmation Controversies. While the material is presented primarily in chronological order, a few cases are strategically placed for pedagogical reasons consistent with the book's focus on values. This casebook is comprehensive in its coverage both as to time period (1787 to the present) and as to subject-matter (slavery, reconstruction, segregation, and attempted eradication as applied to African Americans, American Indians, Latinos/as, and Asian Americans). It includes all of the important cases and statutes pertaining to those subjects and groups. Although containing both cases and statutes, Race Law is an extremely readable casebook. Students love it because it reads like a novel rather than forty separate and distinct cases. This easily readable style is achieved by proceeding chronologically, by careful editing of each case, and by using introductions and conclusions for each case that allow for easy transitions between cases, and between cases and chapters. Race Law contains biographical information on individuals that played significant roles in the cases. Such information adds an element of reality to the theories being discussed. Race Law contains all of the fascinating stories that provide historical background to the cases and statutes. It is the only casebook that contains both cases and stories in one. Designed for those with limited exposure to the history of American race relations law, Race Law provides a unique introductory learning opportunity for law students, graduate students, and upper-division college students. The accompanying Teacher's Manual provides a detailed approach for each class session beginning with an introduction and an opening question, continuing with an in-depth examination of each assigned case, and concluding with a closing question and summary. An outline is provided for each class session, answers are provided for all suggested questions, and each case analysis includes facts, issue, holding, and rationale.
Book Synopsis A Representative Supreme Court? by : Barbara Perry
Download or read book A Representative Supreme Court? written by Barbara Perry and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1991-08-30 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barbara Perry's A representative Supreme Court? focuses on the appointment of 15 of the 105 Justices (8 Catholics, 5 Jews, one black and one woman) to serve on the Supreme Court between 1789 and 1990: Roger Taney, Edward White, Joseph McKenna, Pierce Butler, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, Frank Murphy, William Brennan, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. After an opening chapter laying out the conceptual framework that underlies Perry's investigation of the representative nature of the Supreme Court, the book presents a detailed examination of the circumstances surrounding the nomination and confirmation of each justice. Perry's analysis of the historical record shows that race and gender were important considerations in the appointments of Marshall and O'Connor. The evidence on religion as a factor in the appointment process is mixed. For some nominees their religion played no consequential role in the deliberations of the president who chose them. For others, religion was an important if not the primary reason for their selection to the high court. Often unrecognized, Perry identifies concern with these representational criteria of religion, race, and gender as a distinctively 20th century phenomenon. While Perry's suggestion that representation narrowly defined is relevant to court nominations, her more persuasive argument deals with the relevance of court nominations to presidential politics. She draws a link between the political coming of age of Catholics, Jews, blacks and women and the degree to which presidents have considered these representational characteristics of potential nominees. Representation is seen as a political reward. In some cases, the reward is paid for past support. In other situations, the reward is offered in anticipation of or to secure future support. Having answered the question of whether representative factors such as religion, race and gender played a role in the selection of Supreme Court Justices, Perry ventures further to address the issue of whether such factors SHOULD play a role. In confronting this normative question she finds herself skating on thin ice. The book turns on a specific definition of representation. Perry's definition warrants discussion for it both refines and limits her thesis. Following Pitkin and Mosher, Perry concentrates on "descriptive" or "passive" representation which is "concerned with who the representative is or what he or she is like rather than what he or she does" (10). Indeed Perry argues forcefully in Chapter 6 that the court should be representative in this sense. But what is the value of descriptive representation? Descriptive representation may assist the court in establishing legitimacy of its decisions. Yet was it important to have a black representative on the court to get blacks to accept decision Brown v. Board of Education? Did having a Catholic member of the court make Roe v. Wade more acceptable to Catholics? Will having three Catholics on the court help legitimate the overturning of Roe v. Wade? Did having a man pen the Roe decision make it more palatable to men and will having a woman vote to overturn Roe make women more willing to accept such a decision? What other possible effects of minority group representation exist? Perhaps these individuals are role models for current or future generations. Consider the words of Whitney M. Young, Jr. on the appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court: Page 127 follows: This is an event of tremendous significance for Negro citizens. It is an example of the heights which are open to kids in the ghetto....His appointment is proof that, whatever the obstacles, Negroes can fight their way to the top. (101) Yet no evidence is presented to suggest that Black Americans have found Thurgood Marshall to be a role model. Similarly, there is no evidence that Catholic, Jewish, or female Americans have drawn on the models presented by the likes of William Brennan, Abe Fortas and Sandra Day O'Connor. Combined with the assertion that descriptive representation has not led to substantive representation, it is hard to see the point of an emphasis of descriptive representation on the High Court at all. In many ways, the principal findings here (despite the author's claims) are not about descriptive representation but about the extent of interest representation on the Supreme Court. For those who worry about the policy agendas of Supreme Court justices, Perry's work implies that such worries are overblown -- at least with respect to minorities advancing positions that might be attributed to the groups they represent. Unfortunately, Perry's work predates the Thomas nomination of 1992. It would add to the single case study of Thurgood Marshall in assessing the notion of a Black seat on the Court. Writing prior to the Thomas nomination, Perry anticipates his promotion: Clarence Thomas, a conservative black member of the U.S. Court of Appeals..., reportedly made the short list of four candidates when Bush was considering a replacement for Justice Brennan... (106) Perry argues that the best alternative for Bush would be "to nominate a well-qualified, moderately conservative black, whose race might blunt ideological attacks as Justice O'Connor's gender and Justice Scalia's ethnic heritage arguably did." (106) Bush may well have attempted to follow such advice in nominating Thomas to succeed Marshall. The strategy was barely successful. There are evidentiary concerns. In attempting to demonstrate the importance of these representational factors, Perry ignores systematic comparisons between the eventual nominee and the "competition", those other individuals who were considered by the president and rejected in favor of the nominee. How can readers assess if race, religion or gender played a decisive role, one that put a particular nominee "over the top" in Perry's words, if we do not know what the competition looked like? One frustrating aspect of the book is its limited focus on the Supreme Court. This is simply a bias of the reviewer. Assessment of the descriptive representation of the Supreme Court is but a small step in the examination of representation in American courts. Most descriptive representation in our nation's courts exists at lower levels of the federal courts and on the state benches. Perry concludes by reminding the reader that arguments pitting merit versus representation as criteria for Supreme Court appointments are both simplistic and often inaccurate. It is possible for a candidate to satisfy both concerns. Presidents rarely look for representative candidates that lack merit although they may often consider meritorious candidates without taking representation of group interests into account (and certainly some presidents have appeared to offer candidates satisfying neither criteria). Neither ideology nor representation necessarily detract from merit. A candidate, particularly a successful one, is likely to satisfy a variety of criteria. Ideological compatibility, merit, AND representational qualifications combine to make a nominee that will be successful. Similarly, I would not overlook the merits of this work despite the weaknesses noted. The systematic historical Page 128 follows: presentation of nomination politics will be welcome. It is a step toward further study of the role of minorities in the American courts.
Book Synopsis From Jim Crow to Civil Rights by : Michael J. Klarman
Download or read book From Jim Crow to Civil Rights written by Michael J. Klarman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-05 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact--it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.
Book Synopsis How Rights Went Wrong by : Jamal Greene
Download or read book How Rights Went Wrong written by Jamal Greene and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2021 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eminent constitutional scholar reveals how our approach to rights is dividing America, and shows how we can build a better system of justice.
Book Synopsis Race, Class, and Affirmative Action by : Sigal Alon
Download or read book Race, Class, and Affirmative Action written by Sigal Alon and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No issue in American higher education is more contentious than that of race-based affirmative action. In light of the ongoing debate around the topic and recent Supreme Court rulings, affirmative action policy may be facing further changes. As an alternative to race-based affirmative action, some analysts suggest affirmative action policies based on class. In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action, sociologist Sigal Alon studies the race-based affirmative action policies in the United States. and the class-based affirmative action policies in Israel. Alon evaluates how these different policies foster campus diversity and socioeconomic mobility by comparing the Israeli policy with a simulated model of race-based affirmative action and the U.S. policy with a simulated model of class-based affirmative action. Alon finds that affirmative action at elite institutions in both countries is a key vehicle of mobility for disenfranchised students, whether they are racial and ethnic minorities or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Affirmative action improves their academic success and graduation rates and leads to better labor market outcomes. The beneficiaries of affirmative action in both countries thrive at elite colleges and in selective fields of study. As Alon demonstrates, they would not be better off attending less selective colleges instead. Alon finds that Israel’s class-based affirmative action programs have provided much-needed entry slots at the elite universities to students from the geographic periphery, from high-poverty high schools, and from poor families. However, this approach has not generated as much ethnic diversity as a race-based policy would. By contrast, affirmative action policies in the United States have fostered racial and ethnic diversity at a level that cannot be matched with class-based policies. Yet, class-based policies would do a better job at boosting the socioeconomic diversity at these bastions of privilege. The findings from both countries suggest that neither race-based nor class-based models by themselves can generate broad diversity. According to Alon, the best route for promoting both racial and socioeconomic diversity is to embed the consideration of race within class-based affirmative action. Such a hybrid model would maximize the mobility benefits for both socioeconomically disadvantaged and minority students. Race, Class, and Affirmative Action moves past political talking points to offer an innovative, evidence-based perspective on the merits and feasibility of different designs of affirmative action.
Book Synopsis Race, Law, and American Society by : Gloria J. Browne-Marshall
Download or read book Race, Law, and American Society written by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition of Gloria Browne-Marshall’s seminal work , tracing the history of racial discrimination in American law from colonial times to the present, is now available with major revisions. Throughout, she advocates for freedom and equality at the center, moving from their struggle for physical freedom in the slavery era to more recent battles for equal rights and economic equality. From the colonial period to the present, this book examines education, property ownership, voting rights, criminal justice, and the military as well as internationalism and civil liberties by analyzing the key court cases that established America’s racial system and demonstrating the impact of these court cases on American society. This edition also includes more on Asians, Native Americans, and Latinos. Race, Law, and American Society is highly accessible and thorough in its depiction of the role race has played, with the sanction of the U.S. Supreme Court, in shaping virtually every major American social institution.
Book Synopsis Shades of Freedom by : A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
Download or read book Shades of Freedom written by A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few individuals have had as great an impact on the law--both its practice and its history--as A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals. But Judge Higginbotham is perhaps best known as an authority on racism in America: not the least important achievement of his long career has been In the Matter of Color, the first volume in a monumental history of race and the American legal process. Published in 1978, this brilliant book has been hailed as the definitive account of racism, slavery, and the law in colonial America. Now, after twenty years, comes the long-awaited sequel. In Shades of Freedom, Higginbotham provides a magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, demonstrating how the one agent that should have guaranteed equal treatment before the law--the judicial system--instead played a dominant role in enforcing the inferior position of blacks. The issue of racial inferiority is central to this volume, as Higginbotham documents how early white perceptions of black inferiority slowly became codified into law. Perhaps the most powerful and insightful writing centers on a pair of famous Supreme Court cases, which Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 declared that a slave who had escaped to free territory must be returned to his slave owner. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in his notorious opinion for the majority, stated that blacks were "so inferior that they had no right which the white man was bound to respect." For Higginbotham, Taney's decision reflects the extreme state that race relations had reached just before the Civil War. And after the War and Reconstruction, Higginbotham reveals, the Courts showed a pervasive reluctance (if not hostility) toward the goal of full and equal justice for African Americans, and this was particularly true of the Supreme Court. And in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which Higginbotham terms "one of the most catastrophic racial decisions ever rendered," the Court held that full equality--in schooling or housing, for instance--was unnecessary as long as there were "separate but equal" facilities. Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system, from Reconstruction Congressman John R. Lynch to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan to W. E. B. Du Bois, and he shows that, ironically, it was the conservative Supreme Court of the 1930s that began the attack on school segregation, and overturned the convictions of African Americans in the famous Scottsboro case. But today racial bias still dominates the nation, Higginbotham concludes, as he shows how in six recent court cases the public perception of black inferiority continues to persist. In Shades of Freedom, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist offers a work of magnificent scope, insight, and passion. Ranging from the earliest colonial times to the present, it is a superb work of history--and a mirror to the American soul.
Book Synopsis Race and the Death Penalty by : David P. Keys
Download or read book Race and the Death Penalty written by David P. Keys and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2016 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In what has been called the Dred Scott decision of our times, the US Supreme Court found in McCleskey v. Kemp that evidence of overwhelming racial disparities in the capital punishment process could not be admitted in individual capital cases, in effect institutionalizing a racially unequal system of criminal justice. Exploring the enduring legacy of this radical decision nearly three decades later, the authors of Race and the Death Penalty examine the persistence of racial discrimination in the practice of capital punishment, the dynamics that drive it, and the human consequences of both. David P. Keys is associate professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University. R.J. Maratea is assistant professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University.
