Kategoria BISAC: Law >> Constitutional

From outlawing polygamy and mandating public education to protecting the rights of minorities, the framing of group life by the state has been a subject of considerable interest and controversy throughout the history of the United States. The subject continues to be important in many countries. This book deals with state responses to cultural difference through the examination of a number of encounters between individuals, groups, and the state, in the United States and elsewhere. The book opens the concepts of groups and the state, arguing for the complexity of their relations and...

Is it ever legitimate to redraw electoral districts on the basis of race? In its long struggle with this question, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated race-conscious redistricting either as a requirement of political fairness or as an exercise in corrosive racial quotas. Cutting through these contradictory positions, Keith Bybee examines the theoretical foundations of the Court's decisions and the ideological controversy those decisions have engendered. He uncovers erroneous assumptions about political identity on both sides of the debate and formulates new terms on which minority...

The role of the United States Supreme Court has been deeply controversial throughout American history. Should the Court undertake the task of guarding a wide variety of controversial and often unenumerated rights? Or should it confine itself to enforcing specific constitutional provisions, leaving other issues (even those of rights) to the democratic process?

That Eminent Tribunal brings together a distinguished group of legal scholars and political scientists who argue that the Court's power has exceeded its appropriate bounds, and that sound republican principles...

School vouchers. The Pledge of Allegiance. The ban on government grants for theology students. The abundance of church and state issues brought before the Supreme Court in recent years underscores an incontrovertible truth in the American legal system: the relationship between the state and religion in this country is still fluid and changing.

This, the first of two volumes by historian and legal scholar James Hitchcock, provides the first comprehensive exploration of the Supreme Court's approach to religion, offering a close look at every case, including some that scholars have...

The regulation of intimate relationships has been a key battleground in the culture wars of the past three decades. In this bold and innovative book, Jean Cohen presents a new approach to regulating intimacy that promises to defuse the tensions that have long sparked conflict among legislators, jurists, activists, and scholars.

Disputes have typically arisen over questions that apparently set the demands of personal autonomy, justice, and responsibility against each other. Can law stay out of the bedroom without shielding oppression and abuse? Can we protect the pursuit of...

School vouchers. The Pledge of Allegiance. The ban on government grants for theology students. The abundance of church and state issues brought before the Supreme Court in recent years underscores an incontrovertible truth in the American legal system: the relationship between the state and religion in this country is still fluid and changing.

This, the second of two volumes by historian and legal scholar James Hitchcock, offers a complete analysis and interpretation of the Court's historical understanding of religion, explaining the revolutionary change that occurred in the...

In Brennan and Democracy, a leading thinker in U.S. constitutional law offers some powerful reflections on the idea of "constitutional democracy," a concept in which many have seen the makings of paradox. Here Frank Michelman explores the apparently conflicting commitments of a democratic governmental system where key aspects of such important social issues as affirmative action, campaign finance reform, and abortion rights are settled not by a legislative vote but by the decisions of unelected judges. Can we--or should we--embrace the values of democracy together with...

Offensive street speech--racist and sexist remarks that can make its targets feel both psychologically and physically threatened--is surprisingly common in our society. Many argue that this speech is so detestable that it should be banned under law. But is this an area covered by the First Amendment right to free speech? Or should it be banned?

In this elegantly written book, Laura Beth Nielsen pursues the answers by probing the legal consciousness of ordinary citizens. Using a combination of field observations and in-depth, semistructured interviews, she surveys one hundred men...

The Supreme Court's decision declared unconstitutional a New York State law limiting bakery workers to no more than ten hours per day or sixty hours per week. By evoking its "police power," the state hoped...

In 1983, Klamath Indian Alfred Smith and his co-worker Galen Black were fired as counselors from a drug rehabilitation agency for using peyote, a controlled substance under Oregon law, in a...

Keith Whittington reconsiders the implications of the fundamental legal commitment to faithfully interpret our written Constitution. Making use of arguments drawn from American history, political philosophy, and literary theory, he examines what it means to...

When North Carolina gained a seat in Congress following the 1990 census, it sought to rectify a long-standing failure to represent African American voters by creating, under federal pressure, two "majority-minority" voting districts. One of these snaked along Interstate 85 for nearly two hundred miles--not much wider than the road itself in some places--and was ridiculed by many as one of the least compact legislative districts ever proposed.

From 1993 to 2001, three intertwined cases went before...

No person's life, liberty, or property may be taken without "due process of law." What exactly that means has been one of the most frequently asked questions in American constitutional history. Today, the answer is usually given in two parts: what procedures the government must follow and--in exceptional cases--what the government cannot do even if it follows the proper procedures. The...

Henry J. Abraham and Barbara A. Perry continue to portray the intriguing human stories behind landmark constitutional law cases as they focus on fundamental issues of individual rights relating to freedom of...

The rough-and-tumble world of nineteenth-century New Orleans was a sanitation nightmare, with the city's many slaughterhouses dumping animal remains into neighboring backwaters. When Louisiana finally authorized a monopoly slaughterhouse to bring about sanitation reform, many butchers felt...

Johnson explores...

Johnson explores...

The distillation of Richards's thirty-year advocacy for the rights of gays and lesbians, his book provides a reflective treatise on basic human rights that...