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Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism, Dorothy E. Roberts

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In this Foreword, I make the case for an abolition constitutionalism that attends to the theorizing of prison abolitionists. In Part I, I provide a summary of prison abolition theory and highlight its foundational tenets that engage with the institution of slavery and its eradication. I discuss how abolition theorists view the current prison industrial complex as originating in, though distinct from, racialized chattel slavery and the racial capitalist regime that relied on and sustained it, and their movement as completing the “unfinished liberation” sought by slavery abolitionists in the past. Part II considers whether the U.S. Constitution is an …

The New Jim Crow? Recovering The Progressive Origins Of Mass Incarceration, Anders Walker

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This article revisits the claim that mass incarceration constitutes a new form of racial segregation, or JimCrow. Drawing from historical sources, it demonstrates that proponents of the analogy miss an important commonality between the two phenomena, namely the debt that each owe to progressive and/or liberal politics. Though generally associated with repression and discrimination, both Jim Crow and massincarceration owe their existence in part to enlightened reforms aimed at promoting black interests; albeit with perverse results. Recognizing the aspirational origins of systematic discrimination marks an important facet of comprehending the persistence of racial inequality in the United States.

Maryland Lawyers Who Helped Shape The Constitution: Father Of Freedom - Charles Hamilton Houston, José F. Anderson

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For most Americans, Charles Hamilton Houston is barely a footnote in history. Born in 1896, this Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Amherst College and Harvard educated African-American lawyer went on to win eight of nine cases in the United States Supreme Court. He designed the legal strategy for the historic Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954). He was the first African American to be elected to the Harvard Law Review and the first to earn the degree Doctor of Juridical Science Degree

By 1950 he would be laid to rest, exhausted by his brutal multi-state law reform …

Diversity's Strange Career: Recovering The Racial Pluralism Of Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Anders Walker

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Though diversity remains a compelling state interest, recent rulings like Ricci v. DeStefano and Parents’ Involved toll a menacing bell for schools employing racial classifications to admit minority students. Yet, defenders of diversity may find refuge in original meanings, particularly the original meaning of diversity as articulated by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. in Regents v. Bakke in 1978. Virginian by birth, Powell’s interest in “genuine diversity” coincided with a forgotten version of pluralism extant in the American South during thefirst half of the Twentieth Century. Further, Powell’s conviction that diversity distinguished America coalesced during a trip to the Soviet …