Two of my favorite people, Sasha Natapoff and Guy Charles, have put this together and I can’t wait to watch all in the series:
Contributors and Cases
Professor Tabatha Abu El-Haj
Drexel U. Thomas R. Kline School of Law
Reynolds v. Sims (1964)
In this video, Professor Abu El-Haj explains how the Supreme Court established the foundational principle of one-person one-vote.
Professor Guy-Uriel Charles
Harvard Law School
Lassiter v. Northampton (1959)
In this video, Professor Charles explains how the Supreme Court upheld North Carolina’s literacy test requirement even though it was widely used to disenfranchise Black voters.Professor Yasmin Dawood
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Harper v. VA Bd. of Elections (1966)
In this video, Professor Dawood explains how the Supreme Court held poll taxes to be an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
Professor Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
In this video, Professor Fuentes-Rohwer explains how the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional, throwing doubt on Congressional authority and decades of voting rights jurisprudence.
Professor Michael Kang
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
In this video, Professor Kang explains how the Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment bars constraints on independent electioneering expenditures, thereby deregulating a vast swath of election spending.
Professor Ellen Katz
University of Michigan Law School
Thornburg v. Gingles (1986)
In this video, Professor Katz explains how the Supreme Court created the basic framework for understanding and applying Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the meaning of racially polarized voting.
Professor Justin Levitt
LMU Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Shaw v. Reno (1993)
In this video, Professor Levitt explains how the Supreme Court changed the core meaning of racial gerrymandering by permitting white voters to bring claims of discrimination.