Book cover of The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind

Book description

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Schoolhouse Gate as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Our public schools are where most people first encounter the power of the government. In this pathbreaking and dazzling book, law professor Justin Driver discusses the Supreme Court’s decisions on students’ rights, ranging from locker searches and drug testing to corporal punishment and dress codes. 

Driver’s prose is clear and engaging. His descriptions of the Court’s school cases bring the unforgettable litigants to life, almost as if he had written a short story collection. He skillfully uses the education cases as a lens for understanding the Supreme Court and its Justices.

From Cliff's list on understanding the Supreme Court.

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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