Civil Rights Law

The life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights. At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman's book provoked a wide range of discussion. This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers. The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men - who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present.

Seventeen years old and facing nearly 30 years behind bars, Jarrett Adams sought to figure out the why behind his fate. Sustained by his mother and aunts who brought him back from the edge of despair through letters of prayer and encouragement, Adams became obsessed with our legal system in all its damaged glory. After studying how his constitutional rights to effective counsel had been violated, he solicited the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an organization that exonerates the wrongfully convicted, and won his release after nearly 10 years in prison.

In Eisenhower vs. Warren, two-time New York Times Notable Book author James F. Simon examines the years of strife between them that led Eisenhower to say that his biggest mistake as president was appointing that "dumb son of a bitch Earl Warren." This momentous, poisonous relationship is presented here at last in one volume. Compellingly written, Eisenhower vs. Warren brings to vivid life the clash that continues to reverberate in political and constitutional debates today.

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.

Timothy Sandefur's insightful book provides a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law and argues a vital truth: our Constitution was written not to empower democracy, but to secure liberty. Yet the overemphasis on democracy by today's legal community - rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence - has helped expand the scope of government power at the expense of individual rights.

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.

Most Americans still see Brown v. Board of Education as a triumph - but was it? James T. Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African-Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits; to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision.

Ginsburg and Amanda Tyler, Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk, bring together RBG's most penetrating opinions - many previously unpublished - sharing details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career.

This book tackles the most pressing problems of contemporary free speech law by examining where the idea of free expression came from in the first place, applying the lessons of the past to address the challenges of the present. Free speech cannot be taken for granted – it needs to be fought for. But its champions will be successful only if they understand what they are defending. For free speech is a deceptively simple principle. How should it guide us on the bounds of what is acceptable to say? Should we be free to preach hatred, or to spread fear or fake news?

From acclaimed legal historian, author of a biography of Louis Brandeis and Dissent and the Supreme Court a history of affirmative action from its beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to the first use of the term in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) to 1961 and John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10925, mandating that federal contractors take "affirmative action" to ensure that there be no discrimination by "race, creed, color, or national origin" down to today’s American society.

This concise but comprehensive book lays out specific answers to myriad topical questions about free speech law, and also general explanations of how and why the law distinguishes between protected and punishable speech. The book focuses on modern First Amendment law, explaining the historic factors that propelled its evolution in a more speech-protective direction—in particular, the Civil Rights Movement. It highlights the many cases, involving multiple issues, in which robust speech-protective principles aided advocates of racial justice and other human rights causes.

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.

The Torture Machine takes listeners from the 1969 murders of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark - and the historic 13-years of litigation that followed - through the dogged pursuit of commander Jon Burge, the leader of a torture ring within the CPD that used barbaric methods, including electric shock, to elicit false confessions from suspects.

Over his decade and a half with the New York Police Department, Edwin Raymond consistently exposed the dark underbelly of modern policing, becoming the highest-ranking whistleblower in the history of the force and one of the country’s leading voices against police injustice. Offering a rare, often shocking view of American policing, An Inconvenient Cop pulls back the curtain on the many flaws woven into the NYPD’s training, data, and practices, which have since been repackaged and repurposed by police departments across the country.

Nazir Afzal knows what it’s like to break the glass ceiling, challenge prejudice and shake up predominantly white institutions. Born in Birmingham to first generation Pakistani immigrants, he was the first Muslim to be appointed as a chief crown prosecutor and the most senior Muslim lawyer in the Crown Prosecution Service. His insights into the UK’s relationship with race and power have driven him to demand answers to an age-old question around Britain’s diversity failings: why does ethnic minority talent continue to be side-lined?

In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He documents how autistic self-advocacy and the neurodiversity movement upended views of those whose brains work differently. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change.

This book is the definitive work showing the central place of AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles in the American story. From the founding to the present, rifles and other firearms have played a pivotal role in American history. The story of America’s rifle is largely the story of American history.

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.