Today marks the 65th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision that declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Brown v. Board of Education represented a long-overdue remedy to historical injustice; meanwhile, in some states, the decision ignited aggressive defiance and a violent refusal to desegregate. Those painful episodes in our nation’s history are now decades in the past, and we might think that Brown is clearly settled beyond all question and that no one today would act in defiance of that principle. But we’d be wrong.
Justice Watch: The Alliance for Justice Blog
May 2019
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Wong Kim Ark’s Legacy: Why we must keep fighting for our courts
By Mariah Lindsay and Jane Liu, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
In the fall of 1895, Wong Kim Ark had just returned to San Francisco from visiting his parents, wife and oldest son in China.[1] He had been born in San Francisco; it was his birthplace and his home. He had visited China before and had had no problems returning home. But this trip would be different. Immigration authorities denied him entry, forcing Wong to return to the steamship on which he had arrived. Little did he know that he would spend the next four months on the San Francisco Bay, waiting to find out if he would be allowed to enter the country of his birth. -
Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins at Thirty
By Sasha Buchert – Senior Attorney, Lambda Legal
May 1, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. The case involved a plaintiff named Ann Hopkins who was denied a partnership at her firm because her employer believed she was insufficiently stereotypically feminine. To improve her chances of making partner, Ms. Hopkins was told to “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.” She sued the firm and won a favorable decision holding the firm liable for discriminating against her on the basis of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
