Civil Rights Law

A history of the landmark case of Clarence Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel.

The president of Princeton, a constitutional scholar, reveals how colleges are getting free speech on campuses right and how they can do better to nurture civil discourse and foster mutual respect Conversations about higher education teem with accusations that American colleges and universities...

The age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. Even as state violations of political rights garnered unprecedented attention due to human rights campaigns, a commitment to material equality disappeared. In its place, market fundamentalism has emerged as the dominant force in national and global economies. In this provocative book, Samuel Moyn analyzes how and why we chose to make human rights our highest ideals while simultaneously neglecting the demands of a broader social and economic justice.

Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows listeners how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.

Charlamagne Tha God, New York Times bestselling author of Black Privilege and always provocative cohost of Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, reveals his blueprint for breaking free from your fears and anxieties. Being “shook” is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne, it’s his mission to...

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court made a surprising ruling: The country’s death penalty system violated the Constitution. The backlash was swift, especially in Texas, where executions were considered part of the cultural fabric, and a dark history of lynching was masked by gauzy visions of a tough-on-crime frontier. When executions resumed, Texas quickly became the nationwide leader in carrying out the punishment.

From America’s foremost constitutional scholar, the definitive history of how the ideal of birth equality reshaped the American Constitution, from antebellum debates over slavery and secession, to the Civil War and emancipation, to women’s suffrage In 1840, millions of Black Americans...

Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation.

Nonie Darwish lived for thirty years in a majority Muslim nation. Everything about her life?family, sexuality, hygiene, business, banking, contracts, economics, politics, social issues, everything?was dictated by the Islamic law code known as Sharia. But Sharia isn't staying in majority Muslim...

A provocative examination of race, gun laws, and violence that exposes how the state of Florida bungled the Trayvon Martin case through new interviews and revelations about the trial. Suspicion Nation expertly captures the state of a country conflicted not only about the Trayvon Martin injustice but divided over issues of race, violence, and gun legislation.

The most cited legal scholar in America and the architect of the two biggest ideas to reshape the American conversation—intersectionality and critical race theory—offers the intimate story of how her life gave birth to these ideas. It is not very often that a public intellectual comes along...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice For decades, affirmative action reshaped not just American higher education but the broader society, opening doors that had been closed for centuries and transforming who entered the pathways to power. But the Supreme Court in 2023 killed...

The gripping story of the life and education of one of America's most innovative and idealistic lawyers.

The inside story of how one president forever altered the most powerful legal institution in the country—with consequences that endure today By the summer of 1941, in the ninth year of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had molded his Court. He had appointed seven of the nine justices—the...

In our era of mass incarceration, gun violence, and Black Lives Matters, a handbook showing how racial justice and restorative justice can transform the African American experience in America.

During the civil rights movement, the state of Mississippi created an elaborate spy network. Its mission was to preserve segregation by any means necessary—including voter interference, sponsorship of white supremacy groups, and even murder.

In Mighty Justice, trailblazing African American civil rights attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree recounts her inspiring life story that speaks movingly and urgently to our racially troubled times. From the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, to the segregated courtrooms of the nation’s capital; from the male stronghold of the army where she broke gender and color barriers to the pulpits of churches where women had waited for years for the right to minister - in all these places, Dovey Johnson Roundtree sought justice.

The people most likely to face discrimination today are those who do not or cannot conform to the whims of society. They are the freaks, geeks, weirdos, and oddballs among us. They do and wear strange things, have strange opinions, and need strange accommodations. Outsiders is filled with stories that demand attention, stories of people whose search for identity has cast them to the margins. Their stories reveal that we have entered a new phase of civil rights and need to refresh our vision.

The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off lawlessness and rebellion, but it soon became much more than the sum of its parts. Its power is integrally linked to the perceived threat of Black American equity in what lawyer and critic Hawa Allan demonstrates is a dangerous paradox. While the act was initially used to repress rebellion against slavery, during Reconstruction it was invoked by President Grant to quell white-supremacist uprisings in the South.

Presumed Guilty reveals how the Supreme Court allows the perpetuation of racist policing by presuming that suspects, especially people of color, are guilty.