Civil Rights Prof Blog

New Book Announcement: Civil Rights Stories

Civil Rights Stories, a new volume in the Law Stories Series by Foundation Press, is now available.   The editors, Risa L. Goluboff and Myriam E. Gilles, did a fabulous job editing the volume.  Many prominent Section 1983 cases - including Monroe v. Pape, DeShaney v. Winnebago County, and City of Los Angeles v. Lyons - are featured in this volume. 

Here is the Table of Contents:

Chapter 1:  Shelley v. Kraemer:  Racial Liberalism and the U.S. Supreme Court  by Wendell E. Pritchett

Chapter 2:  Brown v. Board of Education and the Lost Promise of Civil Rights by Risa L. Goluboff

Chapter 3:  Police, Race, and Crime in 1950s Chicago:  Monroe v. Pape as Legal Noir by Myriam E. Gilles

Chapter 4:  Hadnott v. Amos:  Unleashing the Second Reconstruction by Sheryll Cashin

Chapter 5:  San Antonio v. Rodqriguez and the Legal Geography of School Finance Reform by Richard Schragger

Chapter 6:  Civil Rights in Private School:  The Surprising Story of Runyon v. McCrary by George Rutherglen

Chapter 7:  The Story of City of Los Angeles v. Lyons:  Closing the Federal Courthouse Doors by Erwin Chemerinsky

Chapter 8:  The Crime Against Nature on Trial:  Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986 by William H. Eskridge, Jr.

Chapter 9:  DeShaney v. Winnebago County:  Governmental Neglect and the "Blessings of Liberty" by Lynda G. Dodd

Chapter 10:  International Union, U.A.W. v. Johnson Controls:  The History of Litigation Alliances and Mobilization to Challenge Fetal Protection Policies by Carline Bettinger-Lopez and Susan Sturm

Chapter 11:  Missouri v. Jenkins:  Why District Courts and Local Politics Matter by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Chapter 12:  United States v. Virginia:  The Virginia Military Institute, Where the Men are Men and So are the Women by Cornelia T.L. Pillard

Chapter 13:  Civil Rights on Both Sides:  Reproductive Rights and Free Speech in Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York by Serena Mayeri

Chapter 14:  US Airways v. Barnett and the Limits of Disability Accommodation by Samuel R. Bagenstos

Chapter 15:  The Constitution and the Klan:  Understanding the Burning Cross in Virginia v. Barry Black by Thomas B. Metzloff

- L.D. ldodd@wcl.american.edu

Welcome to the Civil Rights Prof Blog

Welcome to the Civil Rights Prof Blog.  The focus of this blog is on the law of Section 1983 - especially constitutional torts litigation.   My goal for this blog is to provide information about especially noteworthy cases,  new scholarship, and conferences of interest to academics, practitioners, and all those interested in the complex, fascinating law of Section 1983.   

I am an assistant professor of law at American University's Washington College of Law, teaching Constitutional Law, Advanced Constitutional Law:  Constitutional Theory, Jurisprudence, Torts, and Government Liability in Constitutional Litigation.  I am currently working on a book manuscript that examines the history of Section 1983, from its origins in the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to the contemporary post-Rehnquist era.  You can read more about my research interests on my faculty profile page:  http://www.wcl.american.edu/faculty/dodd/

Please feel free to contact me with suggestions.   I would greatly appreciate receiving any material that you think might be of interest to readers of this blog. 

- L.D.  ldodd@wcl.american.edu