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Legalizing Evolution 1961–1970

Edward J. Larson

in Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution

This chapter traces the readmission of evolution into the classroom during the 1960s, leading up to the Epperrson case, which struck down Arkansas anti-evolution law, and parallel legal actions in ... More

This chapter traces the readmission of evolution into the classroom during the 1960s, leading up to the Epperrson case, which struck down Arkansas anti-evolution law, and parallel legal actions in Tennessee and Mississippi. It notes the budding creationist legal response to this development. Assuming that biblical creationism could not be taught in public schools, Bryan sought neutrality through silence on the subject of biblical origins by excluding evolutionary teaching as well. This form of neutrality ended when the BSCS texts successfully reintroduced evolution as the central concept in biology instruction during the early 1960s. Meanwhile, the Schempp decision offered strong legal support for teaching creationism along with evolution.Less

Justice Black and the Absolute First Amendment

in No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment

This chapter examines the origins and significance of Justice Hugo L. Black's First Amendment views. It begins by reviewing a related but quite distinct constitutional issue, the so-called ... More

This chapter examines the origins and significance of Justice Hugo L. Black's First Amendment views. It begins by reviewing a related but quite distinct constitutional issue, the so-called incorporation debate. It then turns to Justice Black's absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment, which was driven by the same concerns and shaped by the same considerations as his approach to the incorporation issue. The relationship between Black's views on incorporation and his First Amendment absolutism suggests that his insistence on the primacy of the constitutional text stemmed from a sophisticated concern about the function of a written Constitution, the role of the judiciary in our constitutional system, and the consequences of judicial review based not on the Constitution's language but on extratextual abstractions.Less

The Duncan and White Cases

Harry N. Scheiber and Jane L. Scheiber

in Bayonets in Paradise: Martial Law in Hawai'i during World War II

Duncan v. Kahanamoku was joined for adjudication in the U.S. Supreme Court by White v. Steer, the parallel case of a stockbroker who had been given a heavy provost court sentence for embezzlement. ... More

Duncan v. Kahanamoku was joined for adjudication in the U.S. Supreme Court by White v. Steer, the parallel case of a stockbroker who had been given a heavy provost court sentence for embezzlement. Argument was scheduled for December 1945, that is, after the end of the Pacific war—and, ominously for the Army, after the high court had recently ruled against the government and the “military necessity” argument in the Endo case, ordering unconditional release of a Japanese American woman being held by the authorities in a mainland camp. The Court’s decision came down in March 1946, ruling against the Army, finding the use of provost courts and takeover of the judicial powers while barring review by the federal courts as being in violation of the Hawai’i Organic Act. In a concurring opinion, Justice Frank Murphy strongly condemned the Army’s contention that the presence of so many ethnic Japanese in Hawai`i constituted a security threat warranting its strict regime; dissenting justices reiterated the rationale of the Japanese-American Cases: that it was “their business, not ours,” when the military in wartime decided that emergency conditions warranted curtailment of liberties.Less

Building Multiracial Organizations

Kim Bobo and Marién Casillas Pabellón

in The Worker Center Handbook: A Practical Guide for Starting and Building the New Labor Movement

This chapter offers guidelines for building multiracial worker centers. Some worker centers, particularly those that focus on improving conditions in a particular sector, have recognized the ... More

This chapter offers guidelines for building multiracial worker centers. Some worker centers, particularly those that focus on improving conditions in a particular sector, have recognized the importance of organizing and supporting all workers in that sector. These include Centro Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha, the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, and Black Workers for Justice. This chapter looks at the experiences of black worker centers from which other worker centers seeking to build multiracial organizations can learn. These black worker centers focus on discrimination and aim to remove barriers to hiring, decriminalize race, and integrate civic engagement, among other goals. The chapter concludes by profiling two of the worker centers that have done the most to organize a multiracial base of workers, the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative and the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa.Less

Turning the Corner on Dual Citizenship

Peter J. Spiro

in At Home in Two Countries: The Past and Future of Dual Citizenship

This chapter documents the shift toward toleration of dual citizenship status, beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk. The Warren Court came to see citizenship as a ... More

This chapter documents the shift toward toleration of dual citizenship status, beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in Afroyim v. Rusk. The Warren Court came to see citizenship as a right, raising the bar to its dispossession. Justice Black’s categorical rejection of Congress’s power to “take away an American citizen’s citizenship without his assent” was not meant to protect dual citizenship, but it set in motion a series of judicial and administrative decisions that reached that destination. These moves were enabled by a shift in global relations. It was no longer imperative to maintain clear boundaries of human community. Competing claims became less incendiary as the human rights revolution constrained the ways in which states could any individual, regardless of nationality. Manpower became less important to establishing state power in the wake of military mechanization. The ideological and bipolar orientation of the Cold War helped break down old-world notions of loyalty to sovereign.Less