BROWN V. BOARD TURNS 63 | But Is Segregation Over? | Alito To Receive Honor At Seminary
May 17, 2017
TODAY IN HISTORY
|On this day in 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and end segregation.
LET'S SEE HOW FAR WE'VE COME
|Valerie Strauss writing for The Washington Post considers whether the Brown v. Board decision was a failure, because 63 years later, “segregation is far from being eliminated.” She writes, “In fact, 2016 federal data showed that poor, black and Hispanic children are becoming increasingly isolated from white, affluent children in America’s public schools. Given that, how should Brown v. Board be evaluated?”
AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET
|“It seemed like an important victory for voting rights advocates on Monday when the Supreme Court declined to reconsider an appellate decision striking down North Carolina’s restrictive voting law. But those who follow the arcana of election law have another view — that the justices have merely postponed a showdown over what kind of voting rules are acceptable and how much influence partisanship should have over access to the ballot box.” That’s Michael Wines with The New York Times explaining the implications — or perhaps lack there of — from Monday’s SCOTUS ruling.
ON THE ROAD
|AP reports that today JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO will give the graduation address at a historic Roman Catholic seminary near Philadelphia. Alito will also be awarded an honorary degree at the Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary near Wynnewood.
SCOTUS VIEWS
Trump's Values are Abhorrent to the Federalist Society of Conservative Lawyers
The Washington Post“Amanda Hollis-Brusky is the author of ‘Ideas with Consequences: The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution.’ I interviewed her over email about how the Federalist Society works, and what its role has been under the Trump administration.”
OTHER NEWS
ABA Counters Trump's Transgender Directive in Appeals Court
The National Law Journal“The consequences of discrimination follow transgender students and their classmates into the legal profession, warned the American Bar Association in an amicus brief that urged a federal appellate court to find that such unfairness violates federal civil rights.”