Was Loving v. Virginia Really About Love?
By Osagie Obasogie, The Atlantic | 06. 12. 2017
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws banning interracial marriage, but the issues involved in the case extended beyond its current popular understanding as a tribute to romance.
Interracial marriage is at a historic high. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, couples with different racial backgrounds made up one in six new marriages in 2015—a stark change from previous eras when even looking at someone across the color line with a hint of romance could be a matter of life or death. This radical shift is largely attributed to the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, which marks its 50th anniversary on June 12. In Loving, the Court struck down state laws banning interracial marriage, holding that such restrictions are unconstitutional.
Loving is widely praised as a case about law ceding to the power of love in the face of astonishing harassment and bigotry endured by interracial couples. The redemptive trope coming out of the Loving decision that love conquers all has also influenced other social movements, such as those...
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By Rob Stein, National Public Radio [cites CGS] | 11.29.2018
A Chinese scientist's claims that he created the world's first gene-edited babies is a "deeply disturbing" and "irresponsible" violation of international scientific norms, according to a formal conclusion issued Thursday by organizers of the Second International Summit on Human Genome...
As part of the American Experience series, PBS has produced a documentary and website about the 20th-century eugenics movement in the United States. The Eugenics Crusade was broadcast on October 16, and remains available on the web, along with eight features of varying types. The result is a valuable, if flawed, resource.
Far too few people know much about the history of eugenics, and this project will help to rectify that if it attracts the audience it deserves. The film...
Senator Elizabeth Warren has released the results of a DNA analysis bolstering her family’s belief that their ancestry is partly Native American. She did this as an understandable response to more than six years of political attacks, including specific demands that she be tested. But promoting such a test is extremely problematic.
The result does not prove that Warren is or even could be a member of the Cherokee tribe. As she herself tweeted, “DNA & family history has...
By Audrey Kalman , Guest Contributor | 10.03.2018
Editor’s note: Audrey Kalman reports on the project she and her classmates completed last spring in Kate Wiley’s senior-year history seminar at Lick Wilmerding High School in San Francisco. The seminar focused on the eugenics movement in the United States during the period between the first and second world wars.
Last spring, my peers and I created two websites to inform people about the history of the eugenics movement in the United States. In a seminar on the interwar years...
