Month: May 2012

The debate is growing over Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which requires states and municipalities with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal approval before making any changes to their voting laws. Republican attorneys ...

Syllabus of the Court Invoking the Court's original jurisdiction under Art. III, § 2, of the Constitution, South Carolina filed a bill of complaint seeking a declaration of unconstitutionality as to certain provisions of the Voting Rights ...

Syllabus of the Court Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the...

On Thursday, May 18 it was 58 years since the U.S. Supreme Court held in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  While that case led to a national policy of school d...

A controversial employment discrimination lawsuit pending in Indiana may test the limits of the “ministerial exception,” most recently considered in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC. Both cases involve the power of rel...

Syllabus of the Court Petitioner Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School is a member congregation of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. The Synod classifies its school teachers into two categories: “called” and “lay.”...

Syllabus of the Court Petitioner Padilla, a lawful permanent resident of the United States for over 40 years, faces deportation after pleading guilty to drug-distribution charges in Kentucky. In postconviction proceedings, he claims that his...

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to revisit its decision in Padilla v. Kentucky to determine if its ruling should be applied retroactively. The landmark ruling tackled the controversial link between deportation and criminal offenses, ultimately con...

Syllabus of the Court Congress has power to incorporate a bank The Act of the 10th of April, 1816, ch. 44, to "incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States" is a law made in pursuance of the Constitution. The Government...

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the landmark case, State of Arizona v. United States. The lawsuit addresses the authority of the state of Arizona to enact its own immigration enforcement laws instead of following federal regu...