Same sex marriage and contraception are next on the chopping block
Stay Vigilant
@thefeministlawyer Is same-sex marriage next? What about the right to contraception? #supremecourt #lawyer #law #rights #lgbt #abortion ♬ original sound – The Feminist Lawyer
AG Rob Bonta—an immigrant himself—finds his calling as California’s top migrant defender
More Of This
President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration actions have quickly made Rob Bonta the state’s chief border antagonist.
The California attorney general was a state legislator without a megaphone during Trump’s first term and a cooperative Biden ally early in his tenure atop the state Department of Justice. Even when he tried to lead on suing oil companies and protecting abortion rights, he was vastly overshadowed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
But Trump’s promises of mass deportations have rocketed Bonta, himself an immigrant from the Philippines who Newsom initially appointed to the job, to a new level of prominence.
Read the rest on Politico >
Justice Jackson’s quiet act of resistance at the inauguration
Speaking Of...
If you have to be somewhere you don’t want to be — like, say, the inauguration of Donald Trump — you may as well make it known you’re not down with the program. At least, that’s what it seems Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did.
Yesterday, during the inauguration, while Mark Zuckerberg was yucking it up with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez and Elon Musk simply could not hold himself back from throwing a thumbs-up to the camera, Justice Jackson sat quietly. With her judicial robes, she wore a collar and a pair of earrings made up of cowrie shells. While Jackson hasn’t elaborated on why she wore the statement piece, according to Vogue, the move appears to be a symbol of quiet resistance. The shells served as prized possessions in ancient African cultures, but more notably, for African Americans, cowries were talismans of protection. The National Museum of African American History and Culture notes that historians “speculate the cowries may have been brought to America as talismans to resist enslavement.”
Read the rest on The Cut >
The justice system has failed wrongfully convicted people
Less Of This
In 1987, Ben Spencer, a young black man from Dallas, Texas was convicted in the killing of a white businessman. He was sentenced to life in prison by an all-white jury. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime and he had an alibi. Over the years, eyewitnesses recanted their testimony and a judge, after reviewing all the prior evidence, declared Spencer to be an innocent man. Nonetheless, Spencer remained in prison for more than three decades.
Listen to the story on NPR >
