Today in Supreme Court History: May 17, 1954

5/17/1954: Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe are decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

No question -- Josh is correct. Brown and Bolling were the two most important cases the Court decided on May 17.

Also:

Saenz v. California Dept. of Social Services, 526 U.S. 489 (decided May 17, 1999): limitation of welfare benefits to newly arrived residents to the amounts they would have received in prior state infringed on freedom of travel though such right is not mentioned in Constitution

Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. --- (decided May 17, 2021): though police can without a warrant search a vehicle impounded after an accident (<Cady v. Dombrowski, 1972), they need a warrant to conduct a weapons search of a house to which wife called them for an outside conversation with husband who was in danger of shooting himself

CIC Services v. IRS, 593 U.S. --- (decided May 17, 2021): Anti-Injunction Act (which prohibits "stay" applications to avoid paying a tax) did not bar taxpayer's pre-enforcement challenge to new reporting requirements for consultants of "captive insurers" (which are sometimes used for tax avoidance) because IRS did not follow "notice and comment" rulemaking procedures required by Administrative Procedure Act

BP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 593 U.S. --- (decided May 17, 2021): on appeal of order remanding removed case to state court (suit was by city against oil companies for concealing environmental impact of fossil fuels), court can review all grounds argued by defendant for removal in opposition to motion to remand, even though only one of them (involvement of federal officer, 28 U.S.C. 1442) is by statute specifically reviewable

McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106 (decided May 17, 1993): Federal Tort Claims action dismissed as premature (even though all that happened was initial pleadings) until administrative remedies are exhausted, no matter how long they take to process, and even though claimant was pro se

Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (decided May 17, 2010): life sentence without parole for a juvenile for non-homicide (it was attempted armed robbery) is "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of Eighth Amendment

Organization of a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415 (decided May 17, 1971): injunction barring leafletting of "blockbuster's" neighborhood (realtor who scared white homeowners that blacks were moving in, convinced them to sell at below market value, then resold at above market to blacks) was in violation of First Amendment

[John F. Carr]

In 1971 the court still used the word "Negro" (capitalized).

[Dan Schiavetta]

I’ve lived through several orthodoxies and I hope we’ve finally settled on “black” (though capitalization is still an issue).

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That "we" does not include the Volokh Conspiracy, which eagerly and regularly publishes a vile racial slur. The settled condition at this white, male, movement conservative blog is that the vile racial slur will be used (roughly monthly) and neither censored nor disapproved.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I’m not agreeing with you that whether speech is acceptable or not depends on the color of the speaker’s skin.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I advanced no such assertion.

I indicated that any "we" that has settled on usage of "Black" or "black" does not include a blog that regularly and avidly uses a vile racial slur instead.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It’s only a vile racial slur if the speaker is white, I take it.

[John F. Carr]

My policy on the non-"negro" n-word was formed while watching the OJ Simpson trial. It was very important to know whether a witness had used the word. Fine, I won't use the word just in case I get called on the stand in a celebrity murder trial and want to honestly deny using it. I bet the lawyer won't think to ask if I contribute to a PAC trying to repeal the Reconstruction Amendments, vote for policies with racially disparate impacts, etc. If I call police about "suspicious" people, there will be no proof of my motive. My lips and my fingers are innocent of forming a bad word, and that's what counts today.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It would be hard to lecture on the prose style of the greatest American novel without the words passing one’s lips, that is unless one wants to look ridiculous. Better yet, don’t do that lecture. Better yet, don’t even teach the novel.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why would you take it that way?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you are referring to my use of "white, male" to describe the Volokh Conspiracy, your concern that it involves unique meaning in this context is misplaced. I use that term frequently because (1) that an ostensibly learned blog would be so strikingly white and exceptionally male in modern American academia is so remarkable that it should be noted and (2) it provides useful context -- which many readers would miss in modern America -- with respect to much of the content here.

Plus . . . who knows? Perhaps that usage could incline the Volokh Conspiracy toward improvement.

Full band version.

[Frank Drackman]

C'mon Rev! (man!) you probably were saying the N-word back when I was just a Primary Oocyte in my (Jewish) mother's Ovary....
Although I probably knew more N-words on my Junior High Basketball team than you do today (I had to know them, I was the only Whiteboy(that's how they say it, all one word, like "Nomesane",

Frank "Fluent in Ebonics, and not fake Fluent like Pete Booty-Judge and his "Norwegian"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That word was commonly used -- with ugly terms for gays, women, Jews, Hispanics, and others -- in the town in which I was raised.

That is part of the reason I left town at high school graduation and never returned. I just never liked bigots. I also never glorified the ignorance, illiteracy, violence, backwardness, lack (and disdain) of education, poor judgment, and superstition that were prevalent -- and still are, I am confident -- in America's can't-keep-up, deplorable backwaters.

[DaivdBehar]

Brown did not work. The opposite of its intent resulted around the country.

[DaivdBehar]

"...action dismissed as premature (even though all that happened was initial pleadings) until administrative remedies are exhausted, no matter how long they take to process, ..."

Ivy indoctrinated lawyers on the Court are totally biased in favor of big government, their employer.

[F.D. Wolf]

Brown v. Board of Education, of course, provoked angry reactions in some quarters, especially in the South, yet I don't recall hearing about mobs descending on the homes of the justices. I don't know if that is more due to a greater since of self-restraint and propriety possessed by the segregationist Democrats of the 1950s than today's Democrats or a knowledge that the Eisenhower administration and Justice Department would not have tolerated it.

[Syd Henderson]

They didn't leak a first draft.

[not guilty]

Under the reasoning of Justice Alito´s draft in Dobbs, is Bolling v. Sharpe (a substantive due process decision) subject to being reconsidered? De jure segregation by the federal government is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution. It was not prohibited at common law, nor in 1789 when the Fifth Amendment was adopted. Opposition thereto is not objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 703 (1997).

[Cal Cetín]

It's my understanding that the federal government *does* engage in racial discrimination despite the decision supposedly banning this.