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Rights And Wrongs In The Debate Over Single-Sex Schooling, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In September 2011 an article entitled The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling appeared in the journal Science. Unlike articles typically published in peer-reviewed journals, the primary intent in this case was not to inform the scholarly community but rather to accomplish larger political and legal ends. Co-authored by eight prominent psychologists and neuroscientists, it immediately made the front pages of national newspapers and soon took the international media by storm. From the United Kingdom to Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, it gave rise to a global debate about the pros and cons of single-sex schooling.

As directly …

Rehnquist's Missing Letter: A Former Law Clerk's 1955 Thoughts On Justice Jackson And Brown, John Q. Barrett, Brad Snyder

Faculty Publications

"I think that Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." That's what Supreme Court law clerk William H. Rehnquist wrote privately in December 1952 to his boss, Justice Robert H. Jackson. When the memorandum was made public in 1971 and Rehnquist's Supreme Court confirmation hung in the balance, he claimed that the memorandum reflected Jackson's views, not Rehnquist's. Rehnquist was confirmed, but his explanation triggered charges that he had lied and smeared the memory of one of the Court's most revered justices. This Essay analyzes a newly discovered document—a letter Rehnquist wrote to Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1955, …

Parents Involved And The Meaning Of Brown: An Old Debate Renewed, Jonathan L. Entin

Faculty Publications

In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 the Supreme Court debated the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education. This essay, prepared for a symposium on Parents Involved, traces the roots of the debate between color-blindness and anti-subordination to Brown itself and efforts to desegregate public schools in the wake of that decision but shows that the debate goes back at least as far as the tensions reflected in the first Justice Harlan's celebrated dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson.