Slavery made a mockery of political and civil rights for whites as well as Blacks, and to many Americans it made no sense that states could pursue such repression without raising the opposition, and intervention, of the national government. When, after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the victors had their chance to […]
Read More
The justices of the Supreme Court aren’t always open about their views, but there are times when they inadvertently reveal just how skewed their perspective is. First, a little background. Last year, the Biden administration announced it would end its predecessor’s pandemic-era policy of expelling asylum-seekers at the Mexican and Canadian borders based on a […]
Read More
A Georgia school district may have violated its students’ civil rights by removing certain books from its libraries, creating a “hostile environment” for students based on race, sex or national origin, said the United States Department of Education. The department’s Office for Civil Rights was investigating whether Forsyth County Schools had violated students’ rights, and […]
Read More
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Saturday issued a travel advisory for Florida, saying that under Gov. Ron DeSantis the state has become “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and L.G.B.T.Q.+ individuals.” The N.A.A.C.P. joins the League of United Latin American Citizens, a civil rights organization that issued a […]
Read More
David Duffy, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Florida, just wanted a better way to track disease in sea turtles. Then he started finding human DNA everywhere he looked. Over the last decade, wildlife researchers have refined techniques for recovering environmental DNA, or eDNA — trace amounts of genetic material that all living things […]
Read More
The logic of the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity jurisprudence is that Congress would not have displaced existing immunities without saying so. But Professor Reinert argued that Congress did say so, in so many words. “The omitted language confirms that the Reconstruction Congress in 1871 intended to provide a broad remedy for civil rights violations by […]
Read More In a routine decision in March, a unanimous three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled against a Texas inmate who was injured when the ceiling of the hog barn he was working in collapsed. The court, predictably, said the inmate could not overcome qualified immunity, the much-criticized legal shield that protects government officials from […]
Read More
Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor and activist whose wide-ranging success blazed a trail for other Black artists in the 1950s, died on Tuesday at age 96. A child of Harlem, Mr. Belafonte used his platform at the height of the entertainment world to speak out frequently on his music, how Black life was depicted onscreen […]
Read More
LANCASTER, Pa. — On a blustery morning last month, Gerald Groff drove through rolling farmland in Amish country, slowing to pass the occasional horse-drawn buggy and pointing out some of the hundreds of mailboxes that used to mark his postal route. Mr. Groff, a soft-spoken evangelical Christian and former missionary, said that delivering the mail […]
Read More
In suburban Houston, parents rose up against a top-rated school district, demanding an entirely new reading curriculum. At an elementary school in Hutchinson, Minn., a veteran teacher is crusading for reform, haunted by the fear that, for 28 years, she failed children because she was not trained in the cognitive science behind reading. And Ohio […]
Read More
Former President Donald J. Trump said in an online campaign advertisement on Thursday that if he were re-elected he would “completely overhaul” the F.B.I. and the Justice Department and launch “sweeping civil rights investigations” into local district attorneys’ offices. Mr. Trump’s three-minute ad promising to crack down on local prosecutors in Democratic cities — whom […]
Read More
When the MS-13 gang ran the neighborhood of Las Margaritas, one of its strongholds in El Salvador, there were rules you had to follow to stay alive. You couldn’t wear the number eight because it was associated with the rival 18th Street gang. You couldn’t wear the brand of sneakers the gangsters wore. And you […]
Read More
Cuando la pandilla criminal MS-13 mandaba en la colonia de Las Margaritas, uno de sus bastiones en El Salvador, había que seguir unas reglas para poder sobrevivir. No podías vestir el número 8 porque estaba asociado con la pandilla rival Mara Barrio 18. No podías usar la marca de zapatillas deportivas que usaban los pandilleros. […]
Read More
On the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, Randal Quran Reid was driving his white Jeep to his mother’s home outside Atlanta when he was pulled over on a busy highway. A police officer approached his vehicle and asked for his driver’s license. Mr. Reid had left it at home, but he volunteered his name. After asking […]
Read More
WASHINGTON — A political crisis in Israel and setbacks to democracy in several other major countries closely allied with the United States are testing the Biden administration’s defense of democracy against a global trend toward the authoritarianism of nations like Russia and China. President Biden will deliver remarks on Wednesday at the second White House-led […]
Read More
Brought by the nonprofit organization Upsolve and the Rev. John Udo-Okon, a pastor in the South Bronx, the case focuses on debt collection lawsuits. Hundreds of thousands are filed annually in New York State, and millions more across the country. Many people sued in these cases cannot afford a lawyer. With help, many could defend […]
Read More
Mr. Biden also called out redistricting in Alabama, where activists have said votes of the state’s Black residents have been diluted. How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This […]
Read More
NASHVILLE — A bill signed into law this week in Tennessee makes staging “adult cabaret” on public property or anywhere a child could see it a criminal offense. The law forbids performances in those places by topless, go-go or exotic dancers, strippers, or male or female impersonators who, as the law defines it, “provide entertainment […]
Read More
ROSEBURG, Ore. — Jessica LaVigne was nervous but hopeful on a recent afternoon that the team managing her son’s special education plan at Roseburg High School would tell her something she had dreamed of for more than a decade: He would be able to attend a full day of school for the first time since […]
Read MoreA damning 2014 Senate investigation of the covert program disclosed what the C.I.A. did to Mr. Khan when he went on a hunger strike in his second year of detention: His captors “infused” a purée of pasta, sauce, nuts, raisins and hummus into his rectum. His lawyers called it rape. At his sentencing in 2021, […]
Read More