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Examines the law and politics surrounding the Bakee case; a case claiming reverse discrimnation, considered by many as the most important civil rights decision since the end of segregation.
The impact and ramifications of cases argued before the Supreme Court are felt for decades, if not centuries. Only the most important issues of the day and the land make it to the nine justices, and the effects of their decisions reach far beyond the litigants. Under discussion here are five of the most momentous Supreme Court cases ever. They include Marbury v. Madison, Roe v. Wade, Dred Scott, Brown v. Board of Education, and The Pentagon Papers. An absorbing exploration of enormously controversial events, the series details, highlights, and clarifies the complex legal arguments of both sides. Placing the cases within their historical context (though they ultimately emerge as works in progress), the authors reveal each decision's relevance both to the past and the present. the result is a fascinating glimpse across the centuries into the workings of the Supreme Court and the American judicial system.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke familiarizes students with the landmark Supreme Court case that addressed the issue of affirmative action. In 1973 and 1974, Allan Bakke, a white male, was denied admission to the medical school at the University of California in Davis, despite being well qualified. Bakke filed suit, claiming racial discrimination. In a closely divided 1978 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of programs giving advantage to minorities, but denied quota systems in college admissions. They ruled the UC medical school had, by maintaining a 16-percent minority quota, discriminated against Bakke. Allan Bakke was later admitted to the school, and graduated in 1992. Here, Professor Tim McNeese, who is also a consulting historian for the History Channel's Risk Takers, History Makers series, explains affirmative action and the background behind this lawsuit, as well as the controversy caused by the Court's decision.
An Introduction to Constitutional Law teaches the narrative of constitutional law as it has developed historically and provides the essential background to understand how this foundational body of law has come to be what it is today. This multimedia experience combines a book and video series to engage students more directly in the study of constitutional law. All students—even those unfamiliar with American history—will garner a firm understanding of how constitutional law has evolved. An eleven-hour online video library brings the Supreme Court’s most important decisions to life. Videos are enriched by photographs, maps, and audio from the Supreme Court. The book and videos are accessible for all levels: law school, college, high school, home school, and independent study. Students can read and watch these materials before class to prepare for lectures or study after class to fill in any gaps in their notes. And, come exam time, students can binge-watch the entire canon of constitutional law in about twelve hours.
In the late 1990s, two lawsuits by white applicants who had been rejected by the University of Michigan began working their way through the federal court system, aimed at the abolition of racial preferences in college admissions. The stakes were high, the constitutional questions profound, the politics and emotions explosive. It was soon evident that the matter was headed for the highest court in the land, but there all clarity ended. To the plaintiffs and the feisty public-interest law firm that backed them, the suits were a long overdue assault on reverse discrimination. The Constitution, strictly construed, was color-blind. Discrimination under any guise was not only illegal, it was the wrong way to set history right in a nation that had been troubled and divided by the uses and misuses of race for more than two hundred years. To the University of Michigan, and to other top institutions striving to expand opportunity and create diverse, representative student bodies, it looked as if most of what had been put in place since the 1978 Bakke v. University of California decision was about to be undone. Black and Hispanic students were in danger of being once again largely shut out of the most important avenue of advancement in America, an elite education. To some, it appeared likely that racial integration was about to suffer their worst setback since the start of the civil rights movement. In A Black and White Case, veteran Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr portrays the individual dramas and exposes the human passions that colored and propelled this momentous legal struggle. His fascinating account takes us deep inside America’s court system, where logic collides with emotion, and common sense must contend with the majesty and sometimes the seeming perversity of the law. He follows the trail from Michigan to Washington, DC, revealing how lawyers argued and strategized, how lower-court judges fought behind the scenes for control of the cases, and why the White House filed a brief in support of the white students, in opposition to a chorus of retired generals and admirals worried that the military academies would no longer reflect the face of America. Finally, Stohr details the fallout from the Supreme Court's controversial 2003 ruling that both upheld affirmative action and upended some of the methods that had been used to effect it. And he shows how colleges and universities are reshaping their affirmative action policies--an evolution closely watched by lower courts, employers, civil rights lawyers, legislators, regulators, and the public. A Black and White Case brings alive and brilliantly explains one of the most important Supreme Court decisions on the fundamental and divisive subject of race relations in America.
Joshua's story -- Child protection in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries -- The crime of child abuse -- DeShaney v. Winnebago County in the lower courts -- DeShaney v. Winnebago County in the U.S. Supreme Court -- "Poor Joshua!" DeShaney v. Winnebago County in the court of public opinion
The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices—maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.
The magnitude of the Burger Court has been underestimated by historians. When Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards dotted the landscape, especially in the South. Nixon promised to transform the Supreme Court--and with four appointments, including a new chief justice, he did. This book tells the story of the Supreme Court that came in between the liberal Warren Court and the conservative Rehnquist and Roberts Courts: the seventeen years, 1969 to 1986, under Chief Justice Warren Burger. It is a period largely written off as a transitional era at the Supreme Court when, according to the common verdict, "nothing happened." How wrong that judgment is. The Burger Court had vitally important choices to make: whether to push school desegregation across district lines; how to respond to the sexual revolution and its new demands for women's equality; whether to validate affirmative action on campuses and in the workplace; whether to shift the balance of criminal law back toward the police and prosecutors; what the First Amendment says about limits on money in politics. The Burger Court forced a president out of office while at the same time enhancing presidential power. It created a legacy that in many ways continues to shape how we live today. Written with a keen sense of history and expert use of the justices' personal papers, this book sheds new light on an important era in American political and legal history.--Adapted from dust jacket.
