We the People – 05/25

Saluting the flag: A matter of speech and religious liberty By David Adler      It is fair to say that the government’s preeminent responsibility is to provide for the nation’s defense. When necessary, civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights must yield to the...

We the People – 04/27

Brown and racial equality in public education By David Adler In his unanimous opinion for the Supreme Court in the watershed case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Chief Justice Earl Warren asked the foundational question: “Does segregation of children in public...

We the People – 04/20

The Brown decision and America’s commitment to equality By David Adler “If it was not the most important decision in the history of the court,” Justice Stanley Reed observed of Brown v. Board of Education, “it was very close.” The Supreme Court’s opinion in Brown,...

We the People – 04/13

Earl Warren: Finding “The Notion of Equality” By David Adler President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s recess appointment of Earl Warren to the chief justiceship of Supreme Court on September 30, 1953, constituted a watershed mark in the history of the court. His leadership of...

We the People – 04/6

The Brown decision: Twists and turns shape the Constitution By David Adler  The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the most-celebrated civil rights decision in our nation’s history, is a reminder of the unpredictable twists and...

We the People – 03/30

Justice Harlan’s imperishable dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson By David Adler Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only dissenter from the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, in 1896, in which the majority invoked the “separate but equal” test to...