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Author: Joshua Thompson In one of the most outrageous instances of flat-out unconstitutional intentional discrimination that I have come across in a while, I present Dicken Elementary School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It seems that a group of black students were given a field trip to go see a renowned rocket scientist. Only the blac ...

Author: Joshua Thompson Late last week, I mentioned the outrageous story of Dicken Elementary School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  As you recall, that school decided to send a group of African-American students on a field trip to see a renowned rocket scientist.  All other students, white and minority alike, were prohibited from going on the ...

Since Proposal 2 was passed back in 2006, PLF has been defending its constitutionality in the courts.  Proposal 2, of course, is Michigan’s Proposition 209 analog, banning the use of race in government education, contracting, and employment. And PLF, as a national organization dedicated to protecting a colorblind constitution, it made sense ...

Writing for salon.com, Edward McClelland says that Michigan’s new right-to-work law shows that the state has decided to give in to its economic plight and become a “low-wage haven . . . the kind of place that attracts chicken processors, not software engineers.”  In his view, the right-to-work law represents the consummation of a ...

May the voters of a state amend their state constitution to prohibit discrimination and preferences based upon race?  The Supreme Court will address that question.  Today, with Justice Kagan recusing herself, the Court granted certiorari in Schuette v. Michigan Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, another case concerning racial preferences. ...

  After 31 years, the Supreme Court will finally take another look at the “political structure” doctrine.  If you didn’t read Monday’s post by PLF College of Public Interest Law fellow, Jonathan Wood, you may be unfamiliar with that doctrine.  In 1969, and again in 1982, the United States Supreme Court relied ...

In this excellent post from Discriminations, John Rosenberg describes the five fallacies of the Sixth Circuit’s “jaw-dropping” decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.  In Schuette, the court said Michigan’s voters had somehow violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by enacting ...

As I predicted last year, Justice Breyer voted to uphold Proposal 2.  With Justice Kagan’s recusal, that means the Court voted 6-2 in favor of the constitutionality of the Michigan Amendment. Despite the overwhelming support for the constitutionality of Proposal 2, the Justices differed greatly on their reasoning.  In this post, I discuss t ...

Here at the Liberty Blog, we often write about the benefits of at-will employment for both the employee and the employer. A system that allows both sides to end the employment relationship for any reason or no reason not only promotes economic efficiency, but makes it easier for employees to get jobs in the first … ...