Harvard Law School, in abject surrender to student activists, is about to change its escutcheon because its design was derived from that of Isaac Royall, Jr., who endowed the first chair at the school. Royall’s father made the family fortune from slave plantations in the West Indies and Massachusetts, a fortune that was therefore tainted (as Balzac said that all great fortunes are).
Civil Rights, the Civil Rights Act, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is surely the most renowned piece of legislation enacted in 20th century America. It stands (with the Voting Rights Act passed the following year) as the culminating achievement of the Civil Rights movement, itself now enshrined in conventional opinion as the latest and greatest of America’s great awakenings. By that movement the nation was stirred at last to confront, in the matter of race, its most profound and chronic bedevilment. The moral authority now almost universally accorded the Civil Rights Act and the movement that inspired it has not foreclosed, perhaps indeed has intensified, controversy…
The Upside-Down Constitution: Recent Reviews and Further Reflections
The Upside-Down Constitution sought to spark a more vigorous and forthright debate about federalism and, more broadly, the constitutional order—beyond a federalism of “balance” and a clause-bound, positivist originalism. I’m gratified that a good number of thoughtful lawyers and scholars have accepted the challenge. Early reviews include terrific pieces by Rob Gasaway, sitemeister Richard Reinsch, and Ilya Somin. Recent additions include a review by James A. Gardner (SUNY Buffalo Law School) in the Law & Politics Book Review (more in a sec); by R. Shep Melnick (Boston College) in The Forum; and by Roderick M. Hills, Jr. (NYU Law School) in the Tulsa Law Review.
Alas, Shep’s piece is behind a pay wall and Rick’s, behind a “you-must-buy-the-physical-volume” wall. I have the e-files but can’t link to them without copyright infringement. Next best option: (1) offer to send the file(s) to anyone who asks; (2) give the authors air time on this blog—not nearly as much as they deserve, but enough to give a flavor and to suggest useful lines of further inquiry and debate. I proffer this post in that spirit; with apologies for its inordinate length; and with gratitude to the critics.
