The National Constitution Center Weekly Round Up - Daily Blog
Justice Thomas lobs a legal grenade at a major civil rights law July 1, 2025 | by Marcia Coyle Throughout his long tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas often has used his dissenting and concurring opinions to lob legal grenades at doctrines and prior decisions that he believes should be reconsidered or overturned. Last week, he targeted a major tool for challenging violations of our civil rights. And this time, he got vigorous pushback from his colleague, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The tool is known as Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. It originally was Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, better known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, one of the most important civil rights laws in U.S. history. That act was intended to protect Black Americans from white supremacist violence in the post-Civil War South. Section 1983 allows an individual to sue a state or local government official who has violated his or her constitutional rights. A violation could i...