Brown v. Board of Education – remembrance & resources

On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Oliver Brown et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka that school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren managed to secure a unanimous decision, but at the time, national sentiment on the issue was far from unanimous.

In May of 1961, four short months after the violent reception received by Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter on their enrollment at UGA, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy gave the Law Day Address at the university.

Robert F. Kennedy

Kennedy was well aware of the events of the preceding months (mentioning the two students by name in his speech), the tension on campus, and that he was addressing an audience still largely hostile to the idea of racial integration, but he didn’t shy away from the topic.

Within the context of civil rights, he considered it one of the three “major areas of difficulty…that sap our national strength, that weaken our people, that require our immediate attention.” Reminding his audience that the world was watching, he made an appeal to reason, respect for the law, and a broader vision of the future:

For on this generation of Americans falls the full burden of proving to the world that we — we really mean when we say — we really mean it when we say that all men are created free and equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity. To the South, perhaps more than any other section of the country, has been given the opportunity and the challenge and the responsibility of demonstrating America at its greatest — at its full potential of liberty under law.

Read/listen to the rest of Robert F. Kennedy’s speech.

Learn more about Brown v. Board of Education

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/507787740/

Change in Westlaw access

I few weeks ago I posted information about access to your CALR accounts over the Summer, well for new graduates the rules for Westlaw are changing.

Rather than your access ending July 31 it is now extended thru November 2013.  Your account will remain active for 60 hours for each month, June through November. Password extension will allow use of both WestlawNext and Westlaw Classic. If you had already extended your access, you don’t have to do anything further. If you have not extended your access go to lawschool.westlaw.com.

Beyond the Bar

As a new graduate West is offering you one free course from Beyond the Bar. To receive the free course, you must register with the West LegalEdcenter and use a the promotional code BTBWLFREE . Look for the “New User” link on the left side of the Beyond the Bar program page.

You can choose from among the following courses: Associate Business Development, Building Attorney-Client Relationships, Thinking on Your Feet, Career Vision/Planning, Office Etiquette, Preparing & Planning for Litigation, Shaping Your Career, Six Steps for Starting Writing Assignments, Client Communication, and Negotiation.

Happy Europe Day!

May 9 commemorates the 1950 Schuman Declaration which proposed merging the coal and steel industries of European countries in a way that would preclude future wars between the countries. Today, the European Union ties together the economic interests (and more) of 27 European countries. You can access the documentation of this supranational organization right here in the Law Library, which  serves as a depository for official EU documents, including many on EU law. See our Guide to EU Documents in the Law Library and learn more about the European Union on its official site Europa.

New Book: Fourth Amendment!

As mentioned earlier “Choose Privacy Week” (May 1-8) is coming to an end. However, don’t despair. You can learn more on the topic in the new Law Library book More Essential Than Ever: The Fourth Amendment in the Twenty-First Century by Stephen J. Schulhofer. The author notes that in our digital age, the biggest threat to our individual privacy is our weakening resolve to preserve it. The book offers a history of Fourth Amendment protections looking at its application through specific cases. Read a review of the book in the October 4, 2012 issue of the New Republic. Be the first to check it out at Law Library Balcony KF9630 .S38 2012.

Privacy Week

Sadly, today is the last day of “Choose Privacy Week.”  Don’t worry, we will be back next year to celebrate some more!  Today we will provide some various Congressional Research Reports that discuss Privacy Law.  The first one is Drones in Domestic Surveillance Operations: Fourth Amendment Implications and Legislative Responses, the next is Privacy Protection for Customer Financial Information, finally take a look at Privacy: An Abridged Overview of the Electronic Communications Act.  The titles pretty much sum up the content of the reports.  Hopefully  this week has enlightened you on some issues regarding privacy law!

Constitution USA

This Tuesday PBS will begin presenting Constitution USA. Traveling across the country by motorcycle Peter Sagal is in search of where the U.S. Constitution lives, how it works and how it doesn’t… how it unites us as a nation and how it has nearly torn us apart. This looks like an interesting show that will let viewers know how Americans view the Constitution.

Privacy Week

Privacy Week continues!  Today we will look at the annual report created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”).  In this annual report, the EFF examined the policies of major Internet companies — including ISPs, email providers, cloud storage providers, location-based services, blogging platforms, and social networking sites — to assess whether they publicly commit to standing with users when the government seeks access to user data. The purpose of this report is to incentivize companies to be transparent about how data flows to the government and encourage them to take a stand for user privacy whenever it is possible to do so.

Rulemaking

As you know, Federal regulations are a important part of legal research.  The Congressional Research Service recently issued a report that provides information on the Federal rule-making process.  This report provides a great overview of how agencies make rules and has data on the rules that have been implemented over the past 15 years.

Privacy Week

In continuation of our celebration of privacy week and highlighting some resources on Privacy Law issues, today we will provide information about Epic.org. EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values.  This website has information on a variety of hot topics in Privacy Law including cybersecurity, drones, Google Street View, and Facebook.  It provides a nice overview of each issue and the latest news on each topic.

New DVD: The Central Park Five

Now available in the Law Library DVD Collection is the new, critically acclaimed Ken Burns’ documentary The Central Park Five.  The film focuses on the perceptions of race and crime in America by examining the case of the Central Park Five, a group of minority teenagers wrongfully convicted of brutally raping a white woman in New York’s Central Park in 1989 and their ongoing battle for justice.  Watch the trailer for the film: