1/x As far as SCOTUS goes, I think the lesson black people learned since slavery is to hold in the mind two things that seem to be in contradiction but are not. The first is this: the court is constructed and for the most part operates as a protector of power and the status quo. 2/x You don’t have to be a nihilistic legal realist to realize that, with some exceptions, the court has at one point or another explicitly endorsed or implicitly acquiesce to virtually every single one of the worst human rights violations and abuses in the country.

1/x Here's the irony about Kavanaugh. In the vast majority of cases, particularly those involving constitutional questions, the standard SCOTUS uses is not "of two possible answers, what is the correct one" but rather "of two possible answers, on which side should it err?" 2/x So when the court uses strict scrutiny to strike down a race-based government decision, it's not because it knows for a fact that's the correct outcome but because it believes that when it comes to race it should err on the side of forbidding these government actions.

@SeeDaneRunAgain 1/2His story is even more interesting. His first owner was his own father; his second, his half brother. He was part of the state convention from South Carolina that voted to ratify the 14th amdt. The house he bought after the war was is late slavery-owning father. @SeeDaneRunAgain 2/2 He became a federal customs inspector after retiring from congress but lost his job before he died when Woodrow Wilson fired virtually every black civil servant in the federal government because, racist that he was, he didn’t believe Blacks should be supervising whites

1/x This will be a bit of a con Law thread but it goes to the heart of a big gap in Roberts majority. Majority opinion has 4 steps. Step 1: travel ban fits within POTUS statutory authority. Step 2: when POTUS exercises statutory authority in an area 2/x in which constitution gives him broad powers (immigration) courts will defer to him. Step 3: deferring to POTUS means reviewing the stated rationale for his action (national security) under rational basis review.

The 14th amdt turns 150 years old this year on July 9. It is the closest we’ve come to writing into the constitution what we claimed in the Declaration of Independence. If you’re forced to pick one, choose the 14th - above the 1st, the 2nd, or the FIF. Sorry Dave Chappelle. 2/x I’m using this as a thread to post one tweet a day about the fourteenth amendment until its 150th anniversary on July 9th. John Bingham, republican of Ohio, is credited as the principal author of Section 1 of the amendment, which contains its substantive rights provisions.

1/3 I’m surprised (though pleasantly so) seeing this from a @nytimes correspondent. Often there’s this sentimental notion that the result of voters exercising their democratic will is by definition a wise and virtuous thing. Depending on how you slice the country geographically,

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2/3 I have no doubt that a plurality (if not a majority) would vote to make the US officially a Christian nation, expel Muslims & Jews, & back state-enforced racial segregation etc. This isn’t to deny the sweep and span of American progress (actual & symbolic).

1/x Former confederates not only killed Reconstruction but set about telling a story about how the multi-racial coalitions that governed much of the South between 1866 and 1880 had been a complete disaster and utter failure. It was important to tell that story for two reasons:

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2/x First, telling that story helped justify the ruthlessness with which they re-established a Whites-only government. Second, it served as a warning to future generations never to repeat the multi-racial experiment again. And the story worked extraordinarily well.

1/x I know there’s been a lot of comments on this story and folks are trying to to put the puzzle together using the original video, the Facebook statement from the police commissioner and emerging witness statements. If I may let me put this in a broader legal context.

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2/x The right to have equal access to public spaces was one of the most hard fought rights of the post civil war era. For a time after the civil war, in dealing with newly freed slaves, the country broke down rights into a three part taxonomy of rights.

1/x In 1934, W.E.B. Du Bois published what to this day remains the most sophisticated sociological study of Reconstruction. 2/x He called the book Black Reconstruction and opens it with a prologue “To the Reader,” which is a single page of just four paragraphs.

1/x This thread will attempt to put in plain terms the gerrymandering case that was argued before the Court today. 2/x It is not meant for anyone who is already an expert in voting rights and election law or who has already followed the case closely.

1/x Ms Noonan, all due respect this is getting silly to the point of stupidity. My job is to research, write and teach slavery, the war, and 2/x Reconstruction. I spend my days discussing every single enforcement statute Congress passed under the 13 14 and 15th amdts, beginning

1/x In the days and weeks to come we will hear a lot about the supposed unconstitutionality of DACA. It's important to note the following: 2/x The question whether DACA and DAPA (the provisions covering parents) are unconstitutional is not as clear-cut as some folks pretend.

1/x This thread attempts to explain as neutrally as possible what happened in the #DNCFraudLawsuit 2/x As I go through I will post link to various court documents in the case. My point here is not to make political or moral claims.

1/x I've spent years teaching countless law students about the history of slavery, the confederacy, & Reconstruction. That history is

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2/x complicated but one who studies it critically can fail to see where and how the moral levels ne was drawn in the civil war. The fact