Law and Justice

The Metastasis of the Misdemeanor System

With so many gradations of minor crimes, prejudice and inequality shapes prosecution.

Rethinking Birthright

We need a more just conception of citizenship—one that abolishes the distinction between “natural” and naturalized citizens.

Black Resistance in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

In Revilletown, which was founded by freed slaves, a petrochemical company has seized ownership of an ancestral cemetery. But an attack on the dead is an attack on the living.

The False Promise of Enlightenment

Three new books paint a chilling portrait of darkness in Wall Street, the law, and technology. But the apocalyptic metaphors obscure the real problem, hindering how we fight back.

Solidarity in Silicon Valley

Tech companies have seen waves of worker protest, but they are still far from democratic. The remedy is to build and exert real forms of worker power inside the workplace.

The Government Is Targeting Immigration Lawyers, Activists, and Reporters

A leaked Homeland Security database confirms what many suspected: the U.S. government is trying to punish and intimidate people advocating for immigrant rights.

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy

Business school heroes succeeded because they manipulated corporate law, not because of personal brilliance.

Confronting the Relics of the Old South

Two attractions in Alabama—the new national lynching memorial and the First Confederate White House—show a nation struggling to contend with its legacy of racial violence.

What Statistics Can’t Tell Us in the Fight over Affirmative Action at Harvard

A group seeking to ban affirmative action has sued Harvard for discriminating against Asian Americans. The core issues won’t be resolved by statistics alone.

Mass Starvation Is a Crime—It’s Time We Treated It That Way

The famine in Yemen is not simply “man-made.” Particular men are responsible, and they should be brought to justice.

The Origins of Birthright Citizenship

The Fourteenth Amendment captures the idea that no people born in the United States should be forced to live in the shadows.

Sex Is Not the Problem with Sex Work

Under capitalism, you don’t have to love your job to want to keep it.

Resisting the Juristocracy

The cult of the higher judiciary had its limits long before the left failed to block Kavanaugh. Now the only progressive move is to reclaim democracy.

Managing Innocence

The Innocence Movement faces a perverse rhetorical puzzle: righting the isolated wrongful conviction only reinforces public faith in the system as a whole.

Look Up

We can advocate for the well-being of both Jewish and Palestinian-Arab citizens simultaneously, reversing the zero-sum mentality deeply entrenched in Israeli politics.

A Turning Point in Israel

The government’s new Nation State Law codifies prejudice, but therein lies a silver lining.

Kavanaugh’s Charity Case

We already know how Brett Kavanaugh responds to human suffering.

Courts to the Rescue?

When it comes to fighting Trump’s regulatory agenda, it is the D.C. Circuit that will matter, not the Supreme Court. 

Public Benefit, Incorporated

Three simple changes to corporate law could radically remake our economy.

Black AfterLives Matter

Cultivating kinfulness as reproductive justice.

The Border President

Trump v. Hawaii is not about religion. It’s about the president’s unlimited power at the border.

Cambridge Analytica Is Dead, Long Live Our Data

Were data crimes perpetrated against U.S. voters? We are about to know a lot more.

The Border Is Not a Wall

It is an ever-widening surveillance zone that turns borderland citizens into guardians of the state.

The “Active Shooter” Is the State

We must resist the militarization of our state, our communities, and our psyches and act as allies to those most harmed by violence.

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