It’s been a long time since I carefully counted the speakers and panelists at academic conferences on civil rights to determine how many scholars of color were included, but I’ll admit that when I looked at the lineup for SCOTUSblog’s month-long “Race and the Supreme Court” series in commemoration of Black History Month, the lack…

It’s hard to appreciate the full measure of how aggressively the conservative five-justice majority imposed its will in Citizens United, the Supreme Court’s decision declaring limits on corporate political speech unconstitutional, unless you read it alongside another of the court’s decisions released the same day, Wood v. Alabama Department of Corrections.  By now we all know that…

The ninth season of FOX’s juggernaut American Idol kicks off this week, promising the usual scary auditions, overwrought singing, acerbic critiques from Simon Cowell—and, of course, those spine-chilling moments when a rare talent makes the whole mess worthwhile. American Idol ushered in a new phenomenon in 21st-century network television: Prime-time, reality, talent contests, in which…

UPDATE Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has agreed to a plea deal that will keep her out of prison and allow her to keep her pension. In the so-called Alford Plea, Dixon acknowledges that prosecutors had enough evidence to find her guilty of charges related to failing to disclose gifts from a developer doing business with…

Often the true account of a major disaster cannot be told until years have passed. Rather than dim the memory, time often refreshes the search for the truth—and the listeners’ willingness to reject convenient “real-time” explanations and elisions. That was true of the lies eventually exposed about the government’s response to 9/11, and it happened…

Not long after President Obama’s election, the former Chief Judge and one of the most conservative members of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote a startling and unprecedented op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post called “Storming the Court.” In it, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who for years joined with Jesse Helms in opposing…

It’s fashionable to bash lawyers in this country. The truth is that the vast majority of lawyers are hard-working, ethical, committed to the rule of law and vindicating the rights of their clients. But the Supreme Court has two cases before it that will determine the consequences of lawyer conduct that falls below or outside…

As trial nears in the perjury and theft case against Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, city movers and shakers are quietly talking about succession. Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP. Cheatham has worried vocally that if the current mayor is convicted, the governor might appoint a white person (and/or a Republican)…