By The Editors
Elena Kagan, the United States Solicitor General and former Dean of Harvard Law School, was confirmed by the Senate Thursday as the nation’s newest Justice of the Supreme Court.

By The Editors
Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama’s second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, moved a step closer to confirmation Tuesday when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send her nomination to the full Senate.

By Khalil Gibran Muhammad
In the coming weeks, as Chicago officials extend handgun rights to its citizens in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, and politicians debate whether or not urban residents will be better protected by armed soldiers, important lessons from the past should not go unheeded.

By The Editors
For the second time in two years, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled that gun-control laws cannot abridge the right to bear arms the Second Amendment grants individuals. The decision came in a case challenging the gun-control laws of Chicago and a nearby suburb, Oak Park, Illinois, McDonald v. Chicago, No. 08-1521.

With only days until Senate confirmation hearings begin on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) has released a report examining the nominee’s civil rights record.

By Justice David H. Souter
Former Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter recently received a honorary degree from Harvard University, his undergraduate and law school Alma Mater, and delivered the Commencement Address. His speech was a concerted criticism of the conservative judicial doctrine of “originalism,” which contends judicial decisions should be rendered by adhering to a strict reading of the Constitution.

By Stacey Patton
This week LDF won another significant victory in the Supreme Court. In Lewis v. Chicago, the Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held responsible for each time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified black applicants from employment.

In April Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court spoke at the New York Historical Society about the historical and present-day importance of the infamous Dred Scott decision, which played a critical role in bringing about the Civil War. We cannot think of a more fitting momemt to contemplate Justice Breyer’s words than on Memorial Day, which began in 1868 in the North as a day to pay homage to the Civil War dead.

After years fighting for justice, qualified African-American job applicants will finally have a fair opportunity to land a job with the Chicago fire department. Today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held accountable for each and every time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified minority applicants from employment.

By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
In New York State Thurgood Marshall Day –appropriately — also marks the anniversary of a great American milestone.