Ideas

Law

Gal Koplewitz

‘Legal Whack-A-Mole’

Since October 7, Israel’s oldest and most prominent human rights group has faced stiffer opposition than ever before.

May 9, 2025

David Cole

Academic Freedom in Peril

Two books by leading First Amendment scholars offer a timely defense of the principle that politicians should not try to control what universities and professors teach their students.

April 24, 2025 issue

Adam Hochschild

One Brief Shining Moment

Manisha Sinha’s history of Reconstruction sheds fresh light on the period that fleetingly opened a door to a different America.

May 29, 2025 issue

Fintan O’Toole with Sherrilyn Ifill, Pamela Karlan, and Laurence H. Tribe

Constitutional Crises

April 26, 2025

Jeffrey Toobin

Cases Closed

How would the Mueller investigation have unfolded if the Supreme Court’s recent, chilling Trump v. United States decision had been in effect?

March 27, 2025 issue

David Cole

Gender-Affirming Care & the Courts

The Supreme Court will rule this term on whether a Tennessee law denying minors treatment for gender dysphoria discriminates on the basis of sex.

December 19, 2024 issue

Linda Greenhouse

How Brown Came North and Failed

The effort to desegregate Detroit’s public schools required not just the courts but a social movement that could speak effectively about the barriers that Black people faced before it could begin to seek redress.

May 29, 2025 issue

Noah Feldman

The Last Bulwark

The fate of our democracy today depends on the judiciary’s commitments to liberty, constitutionalism, and legality.

May 15, 2025 issue

Law & Justice

David Cole

Surprising Consensus at the Supreme Court

With narrow rulings in many of its most controversial cases, the Court defied predictions of a sharp turn to the right.

August 19, 2021 issue

Jenny Uglow

Contagious Constitutions

Linda Colley shows in her new book that written constitutions developed both as a means of shoring up entrenched rulers and of turning successful rebellions into legitimate governments.

June 10, 2021 issue

Ankush Khardori

Merrick Garland’s Moderation to Excess

As attorney general, he is the United States’ top law enforcement officer. But is he enforcing enough?

July 15, 2021

Jed S. Rakoff

Sentenced by Algorithm

Computer programs used to predict recidivism and determine prison terms have a high error rate, a secret design, and a demonstrable racial bias.

June 10, 2021 issue

The Latest

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Justice for Chagos?

Decades after the Indian Ocean island colony’s inhabitants were forcibly deported to accommodate an American military base, the ICJ has ruled that they be allowed to return. But is international law sufficient to bring them justice?

May 15, 2025 issue

Trevor Jackson

Scot-Free

We are living through an inflection moment in the distribution of impunity.

March 1, 2025

David Cole

The Wrong War on the War on Drugs

The war on drugs has failed, but so has the constitutional counteroffensive in the courts. What should reformers do instead?

March 13, 2025 issue

Quinn Slobodian

Speed Up the Breakdown

The future of the government depends on how far the DOGE dynamo spins.

February 15, 2025

Caitlin Zaloom

Too Close for Comfort

Why are economists in the US today uniquely able to exercise such sway over the state?

February 13, 2025 issue

John J. Lennon

Tangled Justice

A new book examines the complex relationship between forgiveness and justice through the story of Paula Cooper, who was sentenced to death at the age of sixteen.

December 19, 2024 issue

Jed S. Rakoff

FDR’s Compliant Justices

The Supreme Court’s deference to FDR during World War II resulted in unjustifiable ethical breaches, but its new code of conduct has not resolved the question of when a justice should be disqualified from a case.

December 5, 2024 issue

Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson

The Peril of Civil Breakdown

The US political situation radiates instability. How likely is extremist violence in the aftermath of the election?

November 7, 2024 issue

Laurence H. Tribe

Where Freedom Ends

Law can oppress as easily as it can liberate, and it is the everyday life we lead at our kitchen tables and in our bedrooms that is most dangerously threatened by a return of Trump to power.

November 7, 2024 issue