Category Archives: Uncategorized
Exorcise the Confederacy!
It’s time to wrap up and conclude this blog series on “Beyond the Confederate Narrative.” For context, recall the article’s argument as described in prior posts. The Confederate narrative started out as a state-power justification for slavery and then transformed into a Reconstruction-defeating jurisprudence (Part 1 ; Part … Continue reading
Enacting Citizenship and Enforcing Rights
As legendary civil rights activist Bob Moses often reports, the sit-in demonstrators, freedom riders and voting rights activists of the 1950s and 60s enacted a freedom that they understood to be their birthright. Speaking in the voice of a Movement … Continue reading
Dissent and the Confederate Narrative
As Professor Anna Roberts noted in a popular recent tweet, 1Ls often ask why they read concurrences and dissents. An answer, Prof. Roberts suggested, can be found in this quote from our article “Beyond the Confederate Narrative“: History has repeatedly … Continue reading
Reconstruction’s Rise and Demise
Now that Constitution Day is out of the way, I return to my serialized consideration of our recently SSRN-posted article entitled “Beyond the Confederate Narrative.” In the first post of this series, I introduced a map that visually summarized the … Continue reading
A Constitution Day Proposal
By law, schools that receive federal funding celebrate Constitution Day on September 17. While our Constitution deserves a day, September 17 may be a poor choice. For that date commemorates the signing of the 1787 constitution, a document profoundly stained … Continue reading
Confederate Flags and Confederate Narratives
Like many others, I cheered when South Carolina finally lowered the Confederate Flag from its capitol grounds last July. Though activists had been calling for the flag’s removal for most of the 54 years that it flew, their call was not … Continue reading
Doctrinal War in Ohio v. Clark
All nine Justices of the Supreme Court voted the same way in last Term’s much-anticipated Confrontation Clause decision, Ohio v. Clark. All agreed that the admission at trial of an out-of-court statement made by a 3 year-old to his teacher … Continue reading
Social Research for Social Justice: A Free Law Project
This is the third is a series of posts considering whether academics committed to social justice in theory need to work socially in practice. Last time, I reflected on my early experiences with the online casebook platform ChartaCourse and concluded it … Continue reading
Social Justice by Social Teaching?
In my last post, I asked whether academics committed to social justice need to practice social teaching, social learning, and social scholarship. Answering “yes” based on intuition alone, I promised to report on my own fledgling academic collaborations and reflect on their potential … Continue reading
On Being Social
It’s been a few months since In Progress has featured new content. What can I say? My last post was April 14, two days after police arrested Freddie Gray on the 1700 block of Presbury Street here in Baltimore. Somehow … Continue reading