How Same-Sex Marriage Overcomes the Originalism Argument

Because this is the era of LGBT constitutional rights, let’s talk about the arguments for and against finding a right to same-sex marriage in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. We’ll kick things off with the originalism argument, which goes something like this: “Those who drafted and voted to adopt the 14th Amendment in 1868 …

Kennedy’s Schuette Decision is Really About Same-Sex Marriage

Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s ban on the use of affirmative action in college admissions. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for a very divided Court. Kennedy’s opinion explained that the political process doctrine cases do not apply because those cases all involved specific racial injuries that didn’t exist in this case. For now at …

Is Same-Sex Marriage Unbeatable in Court?

“It’s over,” declare David S. Cohen and Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. Cohen and Lithwick have boldly claimed that same-sex marriage can no longer lose in courts. The Slate article points to eighteen cases involving same-sex issues that have been decided since SCOTUS’s Windsor decision last June, which struck down part of DOMA. Same-sex marriage supporters have prevailed …

The Supreme Court’s Michigan Affirmative Action Decision: Part II of our Coffee House Conversation

Picking up where we left off in Part I … LARRY:  What took you so long to get coffee? JOHN:   Some woman was holding up the line, trying to buy coffee for what appeared to be a group of four 14-year-olds. Do kids really drink coffee when they’re that young these days? LARRY:  Who the …

The Supreme Court’s Michigan Affirmative Action Decision Boiled Down to a Coffee House Conversation

I hope everyone had a great MLK Day this year. I like to imagine that in lieu of going to work on MLK Day, people all over the country spend an hour or so at a coffee shop, bar or even at the kitchen table discussing (at least thinking about) racial diversity. Towards that end, …

A Dose of SCOTUS Holiday Cheer: Oral Argument Annotated—Part III

Tired of playing with all of your new toys already?! Well, we have just the thing–our third and final annotation of SCOTUS’s oral argument transcript on whether a town council can hold a prayer at the beginning of its meetings without violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. When we left off, the conservative …

A Dose of SCOTUS Holiday Cheer: Oral Argument Annotated—Part II

In Dose 1 of our SCOTUS holiday cheer, we learned that “Greece” is not only a bankrupt country that is the bane of Germany’s existence, but also a small town in New York struggling with a big time problem. The town of Greece begins council meetings with Christian prayers, which bothers at least a couple …

A Dose of SCOTUS Holiday Cheer: Oral Argument Annotated

It’s that time of year to sit down to make fun of the guy at the office holiday party who gets too drunk and starts hitting on coworkers prop up the economy by spending excessive money on gifts stunt our children’s logical development by telling them a fat man squeezes down every chimney in the …

The Corporate Morality Hypocrisy

[Barney’s office at Goliath National Bank. As the scene opens, Barney is on the phone with a business associate.] Barney:        The new shredder in my office is junk. It can only shred 100 sheets at a time. My old one could handle 250 (well, it could until I shoved my seven iron in …

Five Things the Supreme Court Could Learn From the NBA—Part 2

The 2014 NBA season tipped off last night, and the 2014 SCOTUS term argued-off[1] A few weeks ago. In light of SCOTUS’s problems gaining attention, we came up with five things it could learn from the NBA. Here is Part 1. 2. Personalities. The greatest strength of the NBA is that fans feel like they …