By Najah Farley On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Florence v. Board of Freeholders that all individuals arrested and held in a correctional facility or jail could be subjected to a routine strip search as long as it only involves a visual inspection. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the controlling opinion, basing his reasoning largely on the balance between inmate privacy and the needs of institutions. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a short concurrence, where he …
Time for the ERA?
By Craig Auster One of the ways that the Obama administration has tried to engage the public is the “We the People” online petition tool. On January 10th a petition was launched asking the White House to “fully engage in efforts to ratify the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).” The petition needed to get 25,000 signatures in a month in order to get an official response—this one got 27,691. What struck me is that in that same month period, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced he would …
India’s Parliament Passes New Law on Sexual Offenses
By Sushila Rao Even as disturbing reports of alleged rapes continue to trickle in with alarming regularity, India’s Parliament recently passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2013. The notoriously inert legislative process received a shot in the arm when the brutal rape and murder of a student in Delhi in December 2012 engendered national protests. A judicial committee headed by a former Chief Justice of India (the Verma Committee) submitted a list of recommended amendments in January …
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Phantom Marriages in a DOMA Hypo Fail
By Tom Watts Yesterday, in the DOMA oral argument, Justice Scalia appeared to make a logical mistake, which created phantom marriages acknowledged by law but never created by law. He was picking up a hypothetical asked twice by Chief Justice Roberts, but he did not appear to have thought it through. As originally posed, the question was as follows: “[Y]ou agree that Congress could go the other way, right? Congress could pass a new law today that says, We will give Federal benefits. When we say …
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Will the Supreme Court strike down affirmative action?
By Nick Nehamas Abigail Fisher claims she didn’t get into the University of Texas at Austin because of her skin color. Fisher’s lawyers argue the school violated her constitutional rights by taking race into account when it denied her admission. “There were people in my class with lower grades who weren’t in all the activities I was in, who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin,” Fisher says in a YouTube video. “I was taught from the …
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Death, Taxes and Journalism: A Way Forward for Nonprofit News at the IRS
By Jonathan Peters This is a guest post by Josh Stearns, the Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director of Free Press. He has published numerous reports on press freedom, journalism, media consolidation and public media, and he speaks regularly about community engagement, activism and the future of journalism. Before joining Free Press, Stearns coordinated policy and communications efforts for service-learning and higher education organizations. He holds a B.A. in English from St. Lawrence …
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