Is It Time for California to Go?

America Keeps Failing the Golden State—And the Supreme Court Decisions on Abortion, Guns, and the Environment Are Pushing Us to the Edge

To encourage us to think about the unthinkable, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets a Doomsday Clock, showing how close humanity is (in metaphorical minutes and seconds) to the “midnight” of the apocalypse (nuclear or otherwise) and human extinction.

California may now need its own Independence Clock, showing how close we are to that seemingly unthinkable moment when our state departs the U.S., to become an independent nation.

In recent weeks, that prospect drew unmistakably closer, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

First, justices overturned more than a century of legal precedent …

California vs. the Supreme Court | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

California vs. the Supreme Court

The Time Has Come to Challenge This Dishonorable Court's Bias Against Our State

Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court should recuse itself from cases involving the Golden State.

Because the current court, with a 6-3 conservative majority reinforced by new associate justice Amy Coney Barrett, …

Why Don’t We Know Mitsuye Endo? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Don’t We Know Mitsuye Endo?

The Layers of Silence Around a Japanese American Hero and Her Landmark Supreme Court Case

Since 2017, a famous black-and-white photo has stayed with me: a young Japanese American woman sitting in front of a typewriter, hands poised in the home position, looking over her …

Two Would-Be Supreme Court Justices and Me | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Two Would-Be Supreme Court Justices and Me

How Do You Cope When Two of Your High School Newspaper Friends Show Up on the Short Lists for the Nation's Highest Court?

The stakes of the presidential election are huge and global. The results may determine the future of public health, the republic, even the planet.

The stakes of the presidential election …

The Supreme Court Gets Ready to Remake America, But How?

Legal Scholars Foresee Corporations and Criminal Defendants Gaining Protections, While Reproductive Rights and Affirmative Action Wither

The United States Supreme Court could use the power it has over American life to identify new protections for criminal defendants and for people whose privacy has been invaded by …

The 1919 Murder Case That Gave Americans the Right to Remain Silent

Decades Before the Supreme Court's Miranda Decision, a Washington Triple Slaying Paved the Way to Protect Criminal Suspects

If you’ve ever watched an American television crime drama, you probably can recite a suspect’s rights along with the arresting officers. Those requirements—that prisoners must be informed that they may …